Ready for tomorrow.....

Here is my summary ready for Lin's lesson tommorow, i found some information on childhood within the middle ages that i found really interesting:

Re – Inventing Childhood Summary:

The Middle Ages

There were many different views on the ideas of childhood during the middle ages. The most dominant institution was the Catholic Church. During baptism one preacher once said, babies, “are simple, without gyle, innocent without harme, and all pure without corruption”.

Greek and Romans idea’s were a big influence on the church when it came to the stages of life, infancy lasted up to the age of 7, childhood up to the age of 14 and to be succeeded by adolescence. Childhood then wasn’t seen as it is today in the sense that  personality and character were massively important.

An abbot once confided in St Anselm The Arch Bishop of Canterbury about the difficulties he was having bringing up two boys in his care and how to discipline them he’d beat them. Anselm didn’t agree with this and burst out “the boys need encouragement and help of fatherly sympathy and gentleness” not just blows.

It has been frequently cited that in the middle-ages children were just referred to and known as ‘little adults’. They were not and childhood was clearly recognised as a distinct time of life.