Volume 38, Number 11 · June 13, 1991
The Birth of Childhood
By Maurice Keen
Childhood in the Middle Ages
by Shulamith Shahar
Routledge, 342 pp., $29.95
Small Worlds: The Village Community in Early Medieval Brittany
by Wendy Davies
University of California Press, 227 pp., $34.95
Life in a Medieval Village
by Frances Gies, by Joseph Gies
Harper and Row, 257 pp., $22.95
Shulamith Shahar's admirably ambitious book seeks to present a new view of the history of European childhood over nearly four centuries, between the early twelfth century and the fifteenth. One of her chief aims is to question the view of Philippe Ariès and his followers that the Middle Ages lacked a clear conception of childhood as a distinct period in human life, with a special character and needs. In particular she seeks to question the view that the high rate of infant mortality in the Middle Ages induced a measure of indifference toward young children, as a defense mechanism against establishing close ties with infants whose chances of survival were slim. Her book has thus a primary concern with the history of sentiment. A secondary aim is to explore potential comparisons between medieval Christian lore about the rearing and education of children and modern psychological theories about the significance of childhood experience in the formation (or malformation) of the personality. These two related themes are intelligently woven together.
Review, 5165 words
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