The narratives of traditional political history written by historians from the north and west of Europe confidently set

the boundaries of the beginning of the medieval period at the fall of Rome in 476 C.E. and ended the period of the Renaissance either in 14 !" with Christopher Columbus#s voyage
Children appear" throwing snowballs" in the margins of a fifteenth$century illustrated manuscript" %The &ours of 'delaide of (avoy.% .

to the 'mericas" or in 1)!7 with another sac* of Rome" this time by the troops of Charles +" the &oly Roman emperor. 't both e,tremes" a narrow geographic focus also made the precision of these dates seem more convincing than it really is. 't the beginning of the period" the focus on the north and west of Christendom" where medieval civili-ation eventually flourished about 1... C.E." for the most part led historians to neglect the geography of the Roman Empire itself" wrapped as it was around the /editerranean (ea. Thus the continuing vitality of the 0y-antine Empire" so Roman that its inhabitants styled themselves Romanoi, never gained as much attention as it deserved. 1olitical and military history also e,aggerated the cultural conflict between 2(3'/ and the Christian 4est" even as 2slamic civili-ation appropriated the fruits of 5ree* science and philosophy and retransmitted them to the 3atin 4est toward the end of the eleventh century. 't the other chronological e,treme" the sac* of Rome appeared to mar* the end of the independence of Renaissance 2talian city$states" even though the struggle between the 1apacy and secular powers throughout the &igh and late /iddle 'ges made the entire 2talian peninsula so vulnerable to invasion and constant warfare that political independence failed to have much meaning. 's Renaissance humanism came to be seen as the center of the movement *nown as the Renaissance" the geographical boundaries of Renaissance culture came to be understood as e,tending across the 'lps into 6rance" 5ermany" and England" as well as to 0ohemia" &ungary" 1oland" and (pain. The Renaissance is now considered to end at about 16.." with some literary historians willing to e,tend the chronological boundary as late as the 164.s to encompass the English poet 7ohn /ilton 816.9:1674; and the English Civil 4ar 8164!:1649;.

Periodization of the History of Childhood

6or the purposes of the history of childhood" the more important debates concerning chronological definitions have centered around what distinction" if any" can appropriately be made between the /iddle 'ges and the Renaissance. The 'merican historian Charles &omer &as*ins" in The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century 81 !7;" sought to claim for the twelfth century the cultural achievements traditionally attributed to the Renaissance< individualism" love for classical anti=uity" and the origins of science. 2n the 1 7.s" this attac* on the originality of the 2talian Renaissance was flan*ed by an attac* from feminists" led by 7oan >elly$5adol#s article %?id 4omen &ave a Renaissance@% 81 77;" and from social and economic historians" who noted that daily lives as e,perienced in the premodern economy and society remained established in identifiable cyclical patterns that stayed virtually unchanged from the urban revival of the eleventh century until the beginning of the 2ndustrial Revolution in the mid$ eighteenth century. (uch attempts to diminish the status of the 2talian Renaissance as an important period for the fashioning of the modern age" though e,aggerated" certainly had the beneficial effect of forcing Renaissance scholars to define more carefully what was distinctive about this period. 4hat has resulted is a much more sophisticated understanding of the relationship between medieval and Renaissance learning" a relationship that involved a shift in emphasis from the scientific disciplines of the seven liberal arts 8arithmetic" geometry" astronomy" and music; to the humanistic disciplines 8grammar" rhetoric" and logic;. 2n particular" the content of humanistic instruction placed an emphasis on the s*ills and subAects re=uired for active participation in urban politics and society< history" poetry" and moral philosophy. 0etween the wor*s of &as*ins and >elly$5adol appeared 1&23211E 'R2B(#s monumental Centuries of Childhood 81 6!;. 'riCs accepted the traditional boundaries between /iddle 'ges and Renaissance" but argued that the Renaissance ushered in a new attention to children and their education" an attention that curtailed the freedom of children themselves. Dsing e,amples from medieval paintings that he saw on wee*ends as part of his itinerant government Aob" 'riCs argued that the /iddle 'ges had no

separate conception of childhood< that children were depicted as little adults. 's in art" so in life" 'riCs believed< children were e,pected to assume adult roles =uite precociously" and little or no attention was paid to the special needs of children until the educational revolution of humanism in si,teenth$century 6rance began to regiment and
?2(C2132EE the moral lives of children. 2ndeed" high 2E6'ET /FRT'32TG" in 'riCs#s view"

blunted any real parental affection when emotional investment in children came at such a high personal cost. 'lthough that view is no longer prevalent among historians" much of the history of childhood in the /iddle 'ges and Renaissance is still being written as though 'riCs#s very provocative ideas still frame the entire debate.

Defining the Stages of Childhood

The chronological boundaries and terms for the stages of children#s lives in the European past were =uite different from those that prevail in the early twenty$first century. 2n the early seventh century the writer 2sidore of (eville divided childhood into two e=ual periods of seven years each" a basic division and terminology that legal sources largely repeated. The first seven years was defined by the child#s inability to spea*" with speak meaning" in this case" the child#s ability to e,press thought with grammatical correctness. This e,pressivity mar*ed the beginning of the age of reason around the age of seven. /ost importantly" it mar*ed the age at which schooling began" Aust as the age of fourteen mar*ed the end of formal schooling and the beginning of '?F3E(CEECE" a period that formally ended at the age of twenty$eight. 't fourteen a child formally entered the adult world and could contract matrimonial obligations. Criminal culpability began somewhere in the middle of this period of pueritia, or childhood" which was mar*ed by the increasing ability to distinguish right from wrong. 'lthough the e,act age at which this was considered to occur Auridically varied from one set of town statutes to another" in general the law prescribed half the adult penalty for crimes committed by children between the ages of ten and fourteen" with the full adult penalties applying once the child reached fourteen years of age. The death penalty for children under fourteen was rare" but not un*nown. This aside" however" the actual use of these definitions and terms for various stages of childhood varied by writer" by location" and by period.

Sources of Evidence

'riCs#s use of evidence from art history underscores a fundamental problem faced by all historians of medieval childhood< a lac* of sources" or at least a lac* of the traditional sources such as family and personal diaries. 6amily and personal diaries begin to emerge in the fourteenth century" especially in 2taly" and some historians have seen in the relative lac* of reference in such wor*s to the lives and upbringing of children a lac* of interest in children as individuals even in the early Renaissance. /ore recently" however" it has become clear that even for the late /iddle 'ges and Renaissance" these sources are not personal or family diaries in the modern sense" but family account boo*s that chronicle the life of the family as an economic unit and as a claim to political office and high social status. Thus for the entire period of the /iddle 'ges and Renaissance in Europe" historians have relied on inference from archeological evidence" literary evidence" and evidence from institutions such as monasteries and hospitals" plus a few autobiographical accounts" in order to reconstruct the realities of medieval and Renaissance childhood. 2f describing %normal% childhood in a stable family setting is the historian#s goal" the set of sources available produces very frustrating results" because historians come across children in court documents" FR1&'E'5E records" and literary accounts of
'0'E?FE/EET" so that

children in the conte,t of household and family play a less

significant role in the evidence than they might have in reality. Even sermons and other literature from the Church fathers refer to children in the 0iblical conte,t:the abandonment of /oses and the (laughter of the 2nnocents are favorite themes" as are the stories of miracles involving the healing of sic* children. (imilarly" medieval preaching about children" as well as images in late medieval art" dwelt on the miraculous intervention of saints to prevent children from accidental inAury or death.

Continuities in Medieval and Renaissance Childhood

?ifferences in geography and time aside" certain common features of medieval and Renaissance childhood provide a sense of continuity across the premodern era" stretching from anti=uity to the nineteenth century. 'ccording to prevailing beliefs" conceiving a child re=uired both the right timing and the right setting in order to

produce the desired result. 2n this" the imagination of the mother" or the visual images with which the couple was surrounded" played an important role in determining the physical characteristics as well as the character of the child. (imilarly" food ingested by the mother" according to popular and medical belief" influenced the outcome of the child. ?uring the Renaissance" deschi da parto, or birth trays" as well as various ceramics presented as gifts to the child#s parents" repeated heroic themes as well as other messages meant to influence the upbringing by parents and mental absorption by the child. 6or the period after the child#s birth" virtually all authorities recommended maternal breast$feeding. Those same authorities conceded the infre=uency of maternal breast$ feeding by emphasi-ing the importance of choosing a wet nurse whose character would be transmitted through breast mil* to the child. 6ollowing 'riCs" some historians have argued that 4ET$EDR(2E5 was a form of emotional distancing from the cruel realities of high infant mortality. /ore recently" however" issues of family strategy have become more prominent in the historical literature" suggesting that because breast$feeding inhibited fertility" mothers sent children out to wet$nurse in order to reduce the amount of time between pregnancies and to ma,imi-e a woman#s potential for childbearing. 2n /editerranean societies in particular" family strategies also revolved around male preference" so that wet nurses were somewhat more li*ely to neglect female infants than male infants. The polyptychs" or censuses" of (aint$5ermain$des$1rHs" an abbey near 1aris" in the Carolingian era 8769:914; show more males than females" with the difference in gender ratios most pronounced for the smallest landholdings. ?uring the Renaissance" this disparity in treatment by gender is evident in the mortality records of
6FDE?32E5 hospitals"

a disparity that began to disappear only in the eighteenth century.

/edical anthropologists have argued that male preference is a consistent feature of environmentally stressed societies" in which parents pay more attention to male children precisely because of their greater biological vulnerability during the first year of life.

Infanticide, Abandon

ent, Institutions

&igh infant mortality" infanticide" and abandonment also represented continuities in the history of childhood during this period" although historians sharply disagree about how widespread the latter two practices were. 2nfant mortality in premodern societies seems to have ranged from appro,imately 17 percent among elites in the best of economic conditions to ). percent among the poor and in charitable institutions:still considerably less than the infant mortality rates of 9. to . percent common in foundling hospitals in eighteenth$ and nineteenth$century Europe. 2n precarious economic circumstances" and during epidemics" both infant and child mortality reached appallingly high levels. 2nfanticide and abandonment were clearly related to one another" not in the sense that they were necessarily e=uivalent" but in the sense that parents Austified 8and sometimes rationali-ed; abandonment as the only humane alternative to starvation. 's early as the mid$fourth century" orphanages and foundling hospitals were established in the 0y-antine Empire" deliberately imitating Roman law. 2ndeed" Roman law established in 0y-antium an elaborate system of guardianship for vulnerable children" in which abandonment to an institution was the last resort after networ*s of *inship and clients had been e,hausted. 3ater 0y-antine emperors and ecclesiastical patriarchs established and supported foundling hospitals for the abandoned children of prostitutes" although these institutions were specifically designated as orphanages at their inception. ' number of 0y-antine orphanages became renowned for their musical training" a tradition either reinvented or rediscovered in Renaissance 2talian foundling homes as well. 2n this respect" early medieval 0y-antium" a relatively urbani-ed society compared to the more rural north and west of Europe" had a greater variety of alternatives and institutions for abandoned children. The north and west of Europe" at least from about ).. to 1... C.E." was prey to invasion" famine" and widespread rural poverty. 6or an age in which both adults and children were at ris*" there is nonetheless archeological evidence that parents struggled to *eep alive even their sic*ly and deformed children" crafting ma*eshift clay feeding bottles for children unable to ta*e the breast. Eor did high infant mortality necessarily wea*en the bond between parents and infants. 2n fourteenth$century 6rance" records from the 2n=uisition suggest the agony of a mother

who could not bear to abandon her infant to Aoin the heretical Cathar movement" and who ultimately had to order that the child be ta*en out of the room. The closest analogue in early medieval western Europe to orphanages and foundling hospitals was oblation" the practice of giving children" especially male children" over to the monastic life. 'lthough genuine religious motivations were at the heart of this practice" it is also =uite clear that for some parents" having an older child reared and educated in the monastic setting arose from considerations of economic necessity and family strategy as well. 's was true for charitable institutions in the later /iddle 'ges" monasteries adopted the terminology of family to construct a form of fictive *inship and familial closeness in monasteries and convents as well. 's medieval society in the 3atin 4est became more urbani-ed in the eleventh century" structures and forms of abandonment changed as well. 'lthough western Europe would not develop foundling homes until the early fifteenth century" large general hospitals as well as more speciali-ed institutions too* in orphans and foundlings in addition to their other patients and pilgrims. ' series of frescoes in the hospital of (anta /aria della (cala in (iena" 2taly" depicts the various forms of assistance that this large general hospital provided for abandoned children. 7ust as was true for medieval convents and monasteries" the vocabulary and organi-ation of hospitals for children sought to replicate what families normally did. Thus both general and speciali-ed hospitals in the /iddle 'ges and Renaissance sent infants out to wet nurses both in city and countryside. 2n late medieval 2taly" for e,ample" entire towns in remote mountainous areas developed microeconomies of wet$nursing. 's families did" these hospitals sent boys out to be schooled and apprenticed to a trade. 5irls were taught to weave and sew" tended to remain inmates of these hospitals much longer" and often left the hospital with a dowry intended for the convent or for marriage. Fver the course of the si,teenth century" many institutions re=uired girls to *eep trac* of their production of cloth" for which their dowries received partial credit" with the remainder going to underwrite the institution#s e,penses. 0oth boys and girls might be available for informal adoptions that usually involved wor*ing as servants for the families in which they were placed.

Affection and E!"loitation

The high levels of infant and child mortality" as well as high levels of abandonment" have led some historians 8often" in the 'riCs tradition; to argue that the emotional lives of children were highly restricted at best and that parents lac*ed affection for children. /ost historians of childhood would now agree that medieval and Renaissance parents displayed the same range of emotion toward children that one finds in the present<
C&23? '0D(E and e,ploitation

then" as now" were present but not necessarily 9;" welcomed the infant into both the

representative. Rituals of 0'1T2(/ and godparenthood" as 3ouis &aas showed in The Renaissance Man and His Children 81 immediate family and into larger networ*s of *in" neighborhood" and community. &umanist pedagogy during the Renaissance" first in 2taly and then in the north" emphasi-ed the role of families as ministates in which children trained for adult roles in public life. Conse=uently" the training of children became the basis for the revival of classical visions of discipline and the early modern state both in the Catholic and 1RFTE(T'ET RE6FR/'T2FE(. Get the boundaries concerning appropriate social and se,ual behavior were certainly drawn differently from those of contemporary times. 2n Renaissance 6lorence" for e,ample" as shown in /ichael Roc*e#s Forbidden Friendships 81 6;" the activities of the Ffficials of the Eight revealed an e,tremely widespread networ* of same$se, encounters between older men and younger boys:encounters that often reflected nonse,ual networ*s of patronage" clientage" and assistance. (e,ual encounters between adult men and teenaged boys were tolerated with greater latitude than encounters between two adult males. 2t was Aust such issues that Catholic and 1rotestant reformers sought to address by melding religious and political discipline. 1recisely at this point in the middle of the si,teenth century one may begin to discern modern outlines of childhood. 2n continuing the educational innovations of the Renaissance" the Catholic and 1rotestant Reformations did not address economic e,ploitation" which continued to be a matter of survival for rural familiesI conse=uently" children within the family too* on important economic roles. 0arbara '. &anawalt#s e,amination of coroners# records from

medieval England" in both The Ties That Bound 81 96; and Growing "ondon 81

pin Medie!al

J;" showed high rates of accidental death" especially by drowning and by

falling into fires. (imilar dangers awaited laboring children and apprentices in medieval 3ondon. 2ndeed" to some e,tent" the new charitable initiatives of early modern Europe fostered the economic e,ploitation of institutionali-ed children as de facto wards of the early modern state. Even regular '11REET2CE(&21( often subAected young adolescents not only to hard wor* but also to very strict discipline. The deaths of children in this period" however" were never ta*en lightly. 'lthough 2talian Renaissance diaries often record the deaths of children rather laconically" this has more to do with the function of diaries as accounts of family finances and family prestige" than with any lac* of affection for children. Even in the case of ta, records" in which during certain times large numbers of female children appear to have gone missing" the gaps are accounted for by the deliberate falsification of these records by ta,payers in order to ma*e their daughters appear younger and therefore more marriageable. 1ersonal correspondence from the period shows that parents placed a high value on the lives of their children and felt an e,treme sense of loss for them when E12?E/2C( and other calamities too* their lives. /oralists instructed parents to bring up and educate children according to the children#s individual characteristics and abilities. 2f in many respects medieval and Renaissance childhoods resemble those of the twentieth and twenty$first centuries" the cultural conte,t of medieval and Renaissance childhood was so stri*ingly different that the superficial similarities are often misleading. 4hat appears initially as a lac* of attention to children has more to do with the nature of the sources" as well as with the integration of children at a very young age into functioning communities of honor" (EKD'32TG" e,tended family" neighborhood" and wor*. The economic functioning of family life and child rearing did not completely submerge affection. 2n the case of inheritance practices" rigid rules concerning
2E&ER2T'ECE

often wor*ed to the long$term protection and advantage of children. 't the

same time individual families often had to tread a very fine line when bonds of affection and the family#s economic" social" and political survival pulled in opposite directions. #ee also$ Early Modern Euro"e# Enlighten ent, $he%

&I&'I()RAPH*
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Childhood in Florence, 3755(3855+ Eew Gor*< (t. /artin#s 1ress. &anawalt" 0arbara '. 1 96. The Ties That Bound$ 9easant Families in Medie!al %ngland+ Eew Gor*< F,ford Dniversity 1ress. &anawalt" 0arbara '. 1 Dniversity 1ress. &as*ins" Charles &omer. 1 !7. The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century+ Cambridge" /'< &arvard Dniversity 1ress. &ausfater" 5lenn" and (ara 0laffer &rdy" eds. 1 94. 2nfanticide$ Comparati!e and %!olutionary 9erspecti!es+ Eew Gor*< 'ldine. J. Growing p in Medie!al "ondon+ Eew Gor*< F,ford

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9olitics of Reproducti!e Control+coming 'isible$ -omen in %uropean History, 0oston<

Eew &aven" CT< Gale Dniversity 1ress. Eiccoli" Fttavia. 1 ). 2l seme di !iolen<a$ 9utti, fanciulli e mammoli nell=2talia tra

Cin.ue e #eicento+ 0ari" 2taly< 3ater-a. Frme" Eicholas. !..1. Medie!al Children+ Eew &aven" CT< Gale Dniversity 1ress. F-ment" (teven. 1 9J. -hen Fathers Ruled$ Family "ife in Reformation %urope+ Cambridge" /'< &arvard Dniversity 1ress. F-ment" (teven" ed. 1 .. Three Behaim Boys$ Growing p in %arly Modern

Germany$ & Chronicle of Their "i!es+ Eew &aven" CT< Gale Dniversity 1ress. Roc*e" /ichael. 1 6. Forbidden Friendships$ Homose0uality and Male Culture in

Renaissance Florence+ Eew Gor*< F,ford Dniversity 1ress.

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Taddei" 2laria. !..1. Fanciulli e gio!ani$ Crescere a Firen<e nel Rinascimento+ 6lorence" 2taly< 3eo (. Flsch*i" Editore. Tre,ler" Richard. 1 9. The Children of Renaissance Florence+ 'sheville" EC< 1egasus J.

1ress. Friginally published as 9ower and :ependence in Renaissance Florence+ 0inghamton" EG< /edieval and Renaissance Te,ts and (tudies" 1 1&2321 5'+2TT