Albrecht Classen, ed. Childhood in the and the Renaissance: The Results of a Paradigm Shift in the of Mentality. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2005. vii + 445 pp. Illustrations $157.00, cloth, ISBN 978-3-11-018421-1.

Reviewed by Daniel T. Kline

Published on H-Childhood (October, 2008)

Commissioned by Patrick J. Ryan ( of Western Ontario)

If the broader culture "knows" anything understanding of childhood as a distinct phase of about children and childhood in the Middle Ages, life. Yet the research of Barbara Hanawalt, Ronald it is that medieval culture didn't know anything Finucane, Sally Crawford, Michael Sheehan, about children. They were considered "little Nicholas Orme, Shulamith Shahar, and others has adults" with whom medieval parents had little if emphasized the existence of parental care, com‐ any emotional connection, and children (especial‐ munity investment, legal consideration, theologi‐ ly girls) were driven as quickly as possible out of cal refection, and literary investigation of me‐ the home and into adult roles. A close corollary of dieval children and childhood from a wide range this view is that the march of of source material and in a number of European since the "Dark Ages" has progressed away from regions. This investigation into the children, fami‐ the casual barbarity of the past and into our more lies, and households of the predominantly Chris‐ developed understanding and enlightened treat‐ tian West are being matched by exciting new ment of children. However, over the thirty years, work in Judaic (Ivan Marcus, Elisheva Baum‐ medieval historians have frmly put to rest garten) and Islamic (Avner Gilead) culture as well. Philippe Ariès' fundamental though fawed analy‐ However, literary scholars generally have sis that is the source of these misconceptions. Ac‐ been rather slow to integrate these historical fnd‐ cording to Classen, in Centuries of Childhood ings into their academic studies, that is, until (1960; English trans. 1962), Ariès argued that high quite recently. Albrecht Classen's anthology, ‐ infant mortality essentially prevented medieval hood in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: The parents from investing emotionally in their chil‐ Results of a Paradigm Shift in the History of Men‐ dren and Ariès examination of iconography and tality is one several recent volumes devoted to portraiture in particular convinced him that me‐ medieval and early modern children. Comprised dieval culture did not have a clear, diferentiated of nineteen chapters, including Classen's introduc‐ H-Net Reviews tion and Christopher Carlsmith's closing pedagogi‐ to the Annales school and its concern for the cal essay, Childhood in the Middle Ages and the longue duree), is as puzzling as it is limiting. Renaissance treats literature featuring children in While I too strongly question the idea of any sin‐ Latin, English, Italian, French, and German, rang‐ gular medieval "mentalité," the idea of emotional ing from the Carolingian period to seventeenth- attachment is still very much indebted to Ariès, century and America. Classen's introduc‐ and by keeping his analysis wed to a putative tory essay, "Philippe Ariès and the Consequences: refutation of Ariès, Classen nonetheless remains History of Childhood, Family Relations, and Per‐ frmly within Ariès' orbit. With this critique in sonal Emotions: Where Do We Stand Today?" pro‐ mind, it is important to be clear about what Ariès vides an overview of the development of some actually argued and what has been widely mis‐ important research, ofers a series of "case stud‐ construed. Ariès neither claimed that medieval ies" on Middle High German texts, and examines parents were indiferent to their children nor did a variety of disciplinary perspectives into me‐ he write that pre-modern parents were abusive dieval childhood since Ariès, including such nota‐ toward their kids. Such a claim is the hallmark of bles as Johann Huizinga (The Waning of the Mid‐ Lloyd DeMause's work (see especially "The Evolu‐ dle Ages, 1924), Shulamith Shahar (Childhood in tion of Childhood" in his History of Childhood, the Middle Ages, 1990), James A. Schultz (Knowl‐ 1974). In perhaps the most (in)famous passage in edge of Childhood in the German Middle Ages, Centuries of Childhood Ariès wrote: "In medieval 1995), and Elisheva Baumgarten (Mothers and society the idea of childhood did not exist; this is Children: Medieval Jewish Family Life, 2007). not to suggest that children were neglected, for‐ Classen's Introduction ends with a call for inter‐ saken, or despised. The idea of childhood is not to disciplinary research into pre-modern childhood be confused with afection for children; it corre‐ and brief summaries of the essays to follow, sponds to an awareness of the particular nature which will "illuminate the complex of mental-his‐ of childhood, that particular nature which distin‐ torical perspectives on emotions, afections, feel‐ guishes the child from adult, even the young ings, and social structures within the medieval adult."[1] So, when Classen correctly states (in a and early-modern family, with particular empha‐ number of places), "We may confdently conclude sis on the child" (p. 51). that the paradigm established and popularized by I found the volume thought-provoking but Philippe Ariès through his famous study ... now equally frustrating. The greatest virtue of can be discarded" (p. 46), he redresses Ariès' sup‐ Classen’s introduction is the breadth of his exam‐ posed devaluation of pre-modern parent's afec‐ ples, the extent of his research into pre-modern tion, as do most of the essays, rather than the childhood, and his valuable incorporation of im‐ "particular nature" of premodern children. As portant work by German scholars. His interesting, such, Classen's pronouncements of an already short "case studies" on Middle High German liter‐ overturned paradigm seem rather, well, dated-- ary texts also directly address Schultz's devalua‐ despite the introduction's tone of innovation and tion of literary sources for insight into medieval discovery. To take one example dealing specifcal‐ childhood. However, the two schools of thought ly with England, Barbara Hanawalt demonstrated around which Classen orients his introductory as much in a series of articles dating back nearly chapter pose conceptual limitations on the analy‐ three decades, as have other scholars for diferent sis. First, Classen's programmatic approach to pre- eras and regions, many of whom seem not to have modern childhood, focusing primarily upon emo‐ been investigated in the collection. tional relationships between parents and children To give Ariès credit, he did establish what and upon medieval "mentalité" (indebted as it is might now be termed the "social construction" of

2 H-Net Reviews childhood. The challenge Ariès presented was not thinkingly and uncritically, and (2) that the lack of so much whether medievals had afection for interdisciplinary efort has hampered the study of their children but in what did the medieval idea pre-modern childhood. However, it must be fatly of childhood consist? What "particular nature"--if stated that too many of the essays in Childhood in any--distinguished children from adults in the me‐ the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, to judge dieval period? Thus, the question concerns not from the relative paucity of references to any‐ only familial afection but social dynamics, not thing other than the immediate topic at hand, simply personal love but the entire complex of simply have not explored the wide variety of cultural discourses in which medieval childhood work done in other disciplines--much of which is took shape. To be sure, Ariès did see in his limited scattered throughout studies devoted to broader range of materials a qualitative and quantitative subjects like women, family, household, genealo‐ diference in the kind of attachment medieval gy, inheritance, virginity, violence, and related persons had with children, but that is not at all topics. Though Classen’s introductory essay is am‐ the same thing as saying that pre-modern persons bitious enough to draw the above criticism, this did not hold their children dear. I would argue robust collection also includes eighteen chapters that historical inquiry into pre-modern children which are each worthy of individual summary and childhood has already moved well past Ariès, treatment. though he remains the putative "father" that In chapter 2, Valerie L. Garver's "The Infu‐ many childhood historians must continually res‐ ence of Monastic Ideals upon Carolingian Concep‐ urrect in order to put him again to death. Similar‐ tions of Childhood" addresses the problem that ly, the concept of a "paradigm shift," indebted as it much of the remaining evidence for Carolingian is to Thomas Kuhn's pioneering work, (The Struc‐ childhood comes from monastic sources (Odo of ture of Scientifc Revolutions, 1962), here is ap‐ Cluny, Alcuin of York, Paulinus of Aquileia, Jonas plied rather structurally, without any historio‐ of Orléans, but not Dhuoda's Handbook), which graphical critique and little analysis of what the tend to idealize the subjects of their hagiographi‐ new paradigm, if any, the discipline is moving to‐ cal vitae and make it difcult to derive data con‐ ward, other than descriptions (as opposed to an cerning the lived conditions of real, historical chil‐ argument) concerning interdisciplinarity. As a re‐ dren. However, as appears to be consistent in sult, Classen lumps together as "followers" of Ar‐ many medieval cultures, Carolingian clerical au‐ iès writers as diverse as Shahar, Schultz, Lloyd thorities as well as parents understood that in‐ DeMause, Linda Pollack, and Lawrence Stone, fants (ages 0-7) and children (ages 7-14) had spe‐ even when their diferences are nonetheless im‐ cifc educational and emotional needs. The Car‐ portant. Personally, I tend to be skeptical of "para‐ olingians excelled at directed personal and spiri‐ digms" or "grand recits" in whatever form, so the tual discipline, inculcated through correction, so key question then becomes one of examining me‐ that children's reading and education could facili‐ dieval children and childhood in specifc cultural tate the complex social, economic, and spiritual situations and interrogating the complexities of networks making up Carolingian culture. these representations in particular texts rather Next, Eva Parra Membrives's "Mutterliebe aus than subsuming these variegated phenomena un‐ weilblicher Perspektive: Zur Bedeutung von Af‐ der a single theoretical carapace. fektivität in Frau Avas Leben Jesu" (Maternal Love Nonetheless, Classen is spot-on to say, (1) that from a Female Perspective on the Signifcance of far too many otherwise well-informed scholars Afection in Frau Ava's Leben Jesu) addresses the (generally though not exclusively outside of pre‐ twelfth-century anchorite's "Life of Jesus." Likely modern studies) continue to propagate Ariès un‐

3 H-Net Reviews the author of four or even fve poems in Middle to the tensions between Jews and Christians in High German, Ava is perhaps the frst named medieval Norwich regarding cultural purity. woman to write in any European vernacular. Mary Dzon's "Joseph and the Amazing Christ- Membrives argues that Frau Ava exemplifes a Child of Late-Medieval Legend," chapter 5, exam‐ particular attitude toward maternal relations ines the late-medieval texts detailing Jesus' child‐ found among female writers of the era that is in hood and youth "as an object of meditation for marked contrast to conventional patriarchal sen‐ their audiences" (p. 135). Dzon's thesis is that sibilities. In contrast to Hrotsvit of Gandersheim, these texts concerning Jesus' rather rambunctious the tenth-century Ottonian writer who was never boyhood are a response to the complexities of me‐ a mother (as far as we know), whose depiction of dieval family life, something that the staid, stan‐ children is often fearsomely cold, and whose ex‐ dard iconography of the Holy Family, based in the emplary representation of the Virgin Mary and canonical gospels, church doctrine, and exem‐ child Jesus is generally dispassionate, Membrives plary narratives, did not readily address. Looking argues that Frau Avas draws upon her own expe‐ at the Middle English translations of apocryphal rience as a widow and mother who has experi‐ infancy gospels, Dzon concludes that they portray enced the loss of child to reread the life of Jesus a realistic family whose parents must deal with through her own maternal experience and to en‐ the antics of a sometimes testy childJesus. courage her (likely) female audience to under‐ In the sixth chapter, Karen K. Jambeck's "The stand the Passion through their lives as mothers Tretiz of Walter of Bibbesworth," takes the oft-dis‐ and parents. cussed Anglo-Norman vocabulary text in direc‐ Chapter 4, Diane Peters Auslander's "Victims tion diferent from many treatments, "asking or Martyrs: Children, Anti-Semitism, and the what do the language and the pedagogical ap‐ Stress of Change in Medieval England" recon‐ proaches in this text reveal about the attitudes to‐ structs the social milieu of William of Norwich's ward childhood and children in the context of death in 1144 and examines the cultural impact of family" (p. 161). Her answer is that, like many oth‐ the ritual murder charge as it developed in er medieval texts representing or addressing chil‐ Thomas of Monmouth's writings. Auslander links dren, the Tretiz attends to childhood as a distinct William of Norwich's martyrdom to theological developmental phase. Childhood was a time to anxiety surrounding Eucharistic discourse, me‐ prepare for the social roles and cultural expecta‐ dieval understanding of the Holy Innocents, and tions attendant upon aristocratic adults, for the afective devotion to the Christ child, he who him‐ Tretiz ofers a specifc vocabulary, and hence edu‐ self was destined for the ultimate martyr's death. cational program, to facilitate the maintenance of Auslander's theory is that the innocent vulnerabil‐ a thirteenth-century Anglo-Norman household. ity of the child William, even at age twelve and a Chapter 7, Nicole Clifton's "The Seven Sages of tanner's apprentice since the age of eight, played Rome, Children's Literature, and the Auchinleck upon community sympathies and enabled the rit‐ Manuscript," argues that the important Auchin‐ ual murder charge. William and other child mar‐ leck manuscript (housed at Edinburgh's National tyrs of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were, Library of Scotland), usually studied for its ro‐ in Auslander's keen phrasing, "sacrifces to the in‐ mance and hagiographical texts, "testifes to a se‐ exorable forces of change" (p. 114). More innova‐ rious and sustained production and appreciation tive, in my view, is Auslander's examination of the of medieval children's literature" (p. 187). In one Ashkenazi ritual marking a boy's frst day of of the fner essays of the anthology, Clifton school (as described by Evan Marcus) in relation demonstrates the interdisciplinary awareness, lit‐

4 H-Net Reviews erary sensibility, and historical acumen necessary standing medieval childhood requires a clear to evaluate a medieval text in its immediate man‐ awareness of the limitations of genre and an un‐ uscript context and wider cultural milieu. The derstanding of the "expectations of the intended Seven Sages of Rome, a widely known frame tale audience" (p. 230), for "conventional notions of at the center of the manuscript, serves as the test childhood may be inferred not only from negative case for Clifton's claim that Auchinleck's collec‐ and positive extrapolations of saintly abnormali‐ tion of texts, deviation from Old French sources, ty, but also from the sanctioning or punitive re‐ didactic emphases, youthful protagonists, and lin‐ sponses of parents" (p. 234). Tinsley argues that in guistic sophistication indicate a youthful--or more saintly vitae, childhood was a time of "precocious‐ likely family--audience. ness" while adolescence was the time of "voca‐ The next chapter, Juanita Feros Ruys' "Peter tion" (p. 235), and he imagines how Der arme Abelard's Carmen ad Astralabium and Medieval Heinrich (Poor Henry) might have been under‐ Parent-Child Didactic Texts," considers Abelard's stood by a courtly audience well versed in hagiog‐ text as an example of a "real" medieval father's raphy. words to his child, Astralabe. The frst half of the The table of contents calls Carol Dover’s chap‐ essay is devoted to a survey of other didactic ter 10 contribution, "Why Did Lancelot Need an texts, with the conclusion that such concerted at‐ Education?" but the essay is entitled "Childhood tention to the children's upbringing evidences and Family Relations in the Old French Prose parental concern, and the actual analysis of the Lancelot" in the text. Dover's central claim is that Carmen comprises the second half. Ruys' helpfully although "childhood is conspicuous by its absence notes how Abelard's fatherly tone in the Carmen in French Arthurian chivalric verse romances of contrasts the generally antifamilial stance he the twelfth- and early-thirteenth centuries" (p. takes in his pastoral writings to the monks of St. 247), the prose Lancelot depicts a nuanced educa‐ Gildas and the nuns at the Paraclete. Ruys' also tional program for the famous hero from infancy notes Abelard's textual gestures toward his noto‐ until age eighteen. Although Lancelot's adoptive rious afair with Heloise, arguing that these refer‐ mother, the Lady of the Lake, is of supernatural ences indicate Heloise's maternal joy. I found it origin, Lancelot's education is largely convention‐ most interesting that in the Carmen Abelard al, and while he receives knightly training, the warns against idolizing one's teacher and admon‐ Lady of the Lake adjusts his education so that ishes Astralabe to follow the dictates of reason in Lancelot overcomes being a foundling and earn choosing his life's path, even against parental dic‐ his noble status in Arthur's court. Most interesting tates. Intriguingly, Astralabe may have done just Dover's examination of the adoptive mother's that--sort of--by eventually joining the Cistercians, emotional attachment to her charge, for the Lady an order with whom Abelard, a Benedictine, "had of the Lake's pain at "losing her foster son is over‐ many personal and theological disagreements" come by her desire for his advancement in the (p. 220). Nonetheless, Abelard clearly understands world and her pride in preparing the 'perfect (but does not sentimentalize) the many difer‐ knight' for knighthood" (p. 263). ences between children and adults in the Carmen. Chapter 11, Tracy Adams's "Medieval Mothers In chapter 9, David F. Tinsley's "Refections of and Their Children: The Case of Isabeau of Childhood in Medieval Hagiographical Writing: Bavaria in Light of Medieval Conduct Books," The Case of Harmann von Aue's Der arme Hein‐ strikes a contrary note and takes as its starting rich" begins by noting that using Middle High Ger‐ point the thesis that "one reason for the percep‐ man saints' lives as historical sources for under‐ tion that the medieval mother did not enjoy

5 H-Net Reviews strong emotional bonds with her children is that child killing more generally, like a twelfth-century noble society constructed her as an intercessor Middle English version of John of Salisbury's Poli‐ fgure with little power of her own, inferior to her craticus (which features a mother cannibalizing children's father, charged with perpetuating the her child), the Slaughter of the Innocents plays values of her rigidly hierarchical society in her from the medieval English cycle dramas, and ofspring" (p. 266). As a result, "In a world where three Chaucerian tales (the tales of the Clerk, Man insecurity and loss were the norm, ofering one's of Law, and Parson). In general, Sandidge essen‐ child a better situation was an act of motherly tially reads these very diferent texts as religious love" (p. 267). After surveying conduct-oriented allegories of afective piety that illustrate tran‐ texts like the Lisle letters, Christine de Pizan's scendent Christian truths--the grieving women of Livre des Trois Vertus, and The Knight of the the texts often evoke Mary sufering Christ's death Tour-Landry for evidence supporting her con‐ (p. 299). The fnal section of the essay fnds San‐ tention that medieval women were limited by pa‐ didge examining legal texts and historical studies triarchy, Adams turns to Isabeau of Bavaria (c. of the late medieval and early modern period, 1371-1435). What is most interesting is that though without integrating these fndings into her Adams takes on not only Isabeau's reputation in literary analysis. Like so many of the other essays, contemporary accounts but takes issue with the Sandidge concludes that "these historical records reception and uncritical promulgation of Is‐ do show ... that infants were valued in this society. abeau's notoriously bad mothering by contempo‐ The literature, moreover, shows that these infants rary historians. Adams makes a convincing argu‐ were loved" (p. 305). ment that Isabeau indeed maintained loving rela‐ The thirteenth chapter, Jean E. Jost's essay, tionships with her children but that her maternal "Loving Parents in Middle English Literature" shortcomings were the result of the untenable po‐ (pp. 306-321), is structured very much like San‐ sition she was often placed in as queen and the didge's, with an opening that surveys diferent cri‐ charges brought against her by political enemies. tiques of Ariès' thesis. The essay then moves into a Chapter 12, Marilyn Sandidge's "Changing series of brief vignettes examining children in Contexts of Infanticide in Medieval English Texts," Middle English literature to demonstrate that they traces the co-occurrence of infanticide references take more than a minimal role in "episodic, ac‐ in historical and literary texts to "fesh out the dy‐ tion-oriented events of extensive tales" (pp. namics between the historical record in medieval 310-11), particularly in texts portraying medieval England and the popular culture's concept of the families. Jost briefy surveys the Fleury Slaughter practice as refected in the literature" (pp. 291), a of the Innocents (a twelfth-century Latin text), the distinction that is not sufciently theorized. After Brome Abraham and Isaac Play, the Alliterative surveying the difculties in defning terms like Morte D'Arthur, Amis and Amiloun, and a bevy of "infanticide" and "homicide," "overlaying" and Canterbury Tales (the tales of the Prioress, the "sufocation," Sandidge turns to texts like Wulfs‐ Physician, the Monk, the Clerk, and the Man of tan's Homily 29, the English "Trentalle Sancti Gre‐ Law). In regards to Chaucer, Robert Worth Frank gorii," "De Amore Inordinato" from the Gesta Ro‐ made exactly the same point more than twenty manorum, and the Hypsipyle episode in Lydgate's years ago, going so far as to classify these as Siege of Thebes to note how infanticide is used to Chaucer's "tales of pathos" in The Cambridge call infant killers to repentance, to reveal illegiti‐ Chaucer Companion (ed. Boitani and Mann,1986). mate births, to illustrate God's infnite forgive‐ Unfortunately, Jost's analysis goes little beyond ness, and to police feminine sexuality and autono‐ diferent declarations that the literary texts my. Sandidge then turns to literary texts featuring demonstrate, once again, that medieval parents

6 H-Net Reviews did indeed care about their children and that Drawing upon classical models like Xenophon's Chaucer's portrayal of "children doomed" and Oeconomicus and the pseudo-Aristotelian Oeco‐ "children redeemed" evokes the audience's pity. In nomica, Alberti's dialogue suggests "that the skills their prioritizing of encyclopedic breadth over an‐ related to the manual arts and to the new mercan‐ alytical depth, Jost's and Sandidge's essays illus‐ tile economy can help maintain a household and trate both the strengths and the weaknesses of the that patriarchs should express their manliness by anthology as a whole. Rather than homogenizing paying more attention to the domestic routine, es‐ these diverse texts under a single interpretive pecially the raising of their children" (p. 342). A fa‐ rubric, any one of the texts Sandidge and Jost cov‐ ther must observe his sons carefully, identifying er could be productively subjected to its own ex‐ their strengths, weaknesses, and proclivities, and tended, diferentiated reading. then adjust their activities, shared environment, The next chapter, Daniel F. Pigg's "Margery and his disciplinary methods (using praise rather Kempe and Her Son: Representing the Discourse than punishment) to shape their personal devel‐ of Family," another of the fner essays in the col‐ opment. The father's disciplinary goal is to facili‐ lection, returns the collection to more solid ana‐ tate his children's abilities to function throughout lytical and argumentative grounds by closely ex‐ the stratifed social networks in the wider com‐ amining Book II of Kempe's text, in which Kempe munity. Competence in the fne arts, writing, and frst assails her son and then celebrates his con‐ conversation are emphasized over childish play, version. By problematizing the too easy opposi‐ and Vitullo convincingly demonstrates that Alber‐ tion of family life to religious vocation in Kempe's ti draws upon but signifcantly extends classical "failed hagiography" (to use Kathleen Ashley's models of education while articulating a new no‐ phrase), Pigg argues that in "the medieval as in tion of masculine identity in ffteenth-century Flo‐ the modern world, the family was an important rence. semiotic system that underlies the social fabric as Chapter 16, Laurel Reed's "Art, Life, Charm, a discernable unit, an economic institution, and and Titian's Portrait of Clarissa Strozzi" is the the name of an important discourse" (p. 332). only essay in Childhood in the Middle Ages and Kempe's exemplary depiction of her prodigal son Renaissance that engages the question of pre- operates at the intersection of "the bourgeois, the modern childhood in something other than a religious, and familial discourses" (p. 334), allow‐ written text. Reed specifcally takes up an art-his‐ ing her to condemn her son ruthlessly so that she torical analysis of Titian's Portrait so as to cri‐ may later intercede for him spiritually (p. 336). tique Ariès inadequate treatment of visual Pigg thus shows how Book II, which for many sources in Centuries of Childhood. Ariès collapsed readers seems to be an ill-conceived afterthought, the distinction between art and life, but Reed ar‐ is in fact a powerful demonstration that "Family is gues possesses "its own logic; the portrayed or material; family is discourse; and family is ulti‐ represented is not a mirror of what actually is, mately caught up with the person that Kempe and but rather an interpretation" (pp. 355-56). In an el‐ her son are in the process of becoming" (p. 338). egant turn of phrase, Reed states, "Art is, more ac‐ Chapter 15 marks the anthology's turn from curately, reality fltered through the varied lens of specifcally medieval material and toward early aestheticism" (p. 356), while Ariès too closely asso‐ modern considerations, as Juliann Vitullo's "Fash‐ ciated changes in artistic fashion with actual so‐ ioning Fatherhood: Leon Battista Alberti's Art of cial, cultural, and historical developments. In " shows the seriousness with which Al‐ comparing the child portraiture of Hans Holbein berti treated the responsibilities of fatherhood. the Younger and Jan Gossaert to Titian, Reed's sensitive, nuanced reading shows how Titian's

7 H-Net Reviews full-length Portrait of Clarissa Strozzi, with its of further research into pre-modern childhood, seemingly awkward posing of the young girl especially in cases like the young Andrés Núñez. cradling her dog, is itself a pedagogical lesson and Chapter 18, Allison P. Coudert's "Educating recognition of childhood development, with the Girls in Early Modern Europe and America," takes youthful Clarissa imitating--not yet perfectly--a a broad look at pan-Atlantic attitudes toward fe‐ Renaissance ideal. Titian's composition demon‐ male education and training in the sixteenth strates that "Clarissa is learning by imitation. Her through the eighteenth centuries. Beginning with unwieldy pose establishes her as a young child, the claim that Eurcharius Rosslin, Johannes Coler, not yet adept at the sprezzatura of constructing a Montaigne, and Rousseau all valued education, proper fgura serpentinata" (p. 367), or the inter‐ but for boys only, Coudert argues that "the revised play of graceful beauty and sinuous strength. Al‐ and relatively rosy picture of childhood education though Reed does not see in Titian's portrait un‐ in the early modern period minimizes the very ambiguous evidence of parental love and attach‐ real underlying view among parents and educa‐ ment, she does note that the Strozzi family was tors that children are inherently evil. Consequent‐ committed to their children's development, and ly, new methods of instruction were required, and "Education in grace and charm is understood as a these were predicated on an unprecedented de‐ cumulative, gradual process that begins early in gree of mind control, established through the in‐ life" (p. 367). culcation of humiliation, shame, and guilt" (pp. Chapter 17, David Graizbord's "Converso Chil‐ 389-90). According to Coudert, conditioned by a dren under the Inquisitorial Microscope in the strong concept of original sin, early modern par‐ Seventeenth Century: What May the Sources Tell ents loved their children, to be sure, but were in‐ Us about Their Lives?" takes the procesos (inquisi‐ structed to favor strict discipline so that their torial accounts) as ethnographic evidence of "the emotions for their children would not cloud their actual words of pre-modern children" (p. 374), al‐ parental responsibilities regarding proper spiritu‐ though at least two of his four primary examples, al instruction and educational discipline. Here Luis de Aguilar Aragón (17) and Duarte Mon‐ Coudert turns to Calvinist thinkers like John tesinos (15), are older than the traditional bound‐ Robinson, , and Ralph Josselin as well ary of childhood. Graizbord notes that conversos as Cotton Mather, Benjamin Wadswort, Jonathan children, on one hand, were usually at the mercy Edwards, and John Wesley before invoking writ‐ of their inquisitors and conveyed damaging (and ers and texts as diverse as Jacqueline Pascal of sometimes outrageously exaggerated) informa‐ Port Royal, Martin Luther's Duties of Parents in tion but, on the other hand, were sometimes able Training Children, and Juan Luis Vives' De Institu‐ to use the inquisitorial process to break free from tione Foeminae Christianea to argue that early oppressive family structures or to defy specifc modernity advocated not so much the education family members. Although Graizbord attempts to as the sufocation of girls under the demands of avoid the essentialist presuppositions that often the patriarchal household and hierarchical attend the study of the conversos identities--the church, all to keep women in an inferior social po‐ evil or demonic Jew, for example--the inquisitors sition. Coudert ends her rather strident essay with themselves do not fare as well, for they are gener‐ the invocation of witch burning as the epitome of ally depicted as evil fgures who manipulate con‐ patriarchal abuse against the threat of feminine versos children to their own ideological needs. autonomy, a position that is stated rather than Nonetheless, Graizbord's analysis indicates that demonstrated. Much like Jost's and Sandidge's es‐ procesos records could become a fruitful avenue says before her, Coudert lumps so many diferent texts from widely diferent periods, thinkers, and

8 H-Net Reviews locales under a single undiferentiated theoretical fore briefy mentioning the types of assignments umbrella that their individual subtleties are lost one might give and the kinds of student evalua‐ under the glare of an overweening ideological tions one might expect. I suspect that since Carl‐ agenda. Even more, many of Coudert's citations smith composed his essay, even more academics are from one of two outdated secondary sources, have taken on the challenge of designing a course Philip J. Greven's 1973 Child Rearing Concepts, like this and would fnd food for pedagogical 1628-1861: Historical Sources and Greven's 1977 thought in Carlsmith's contribution. The Protestant Temperament: Patterns of Child- As the summaries above demonstrate, Child‐ Rearing, Religious Experience and the Self in Ear‐ hood in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance is an ly America, rather than the primary texts them‐ ambitious but sometimes uneven anthology, as selves--a research weakness shared by more than notable in some cases for what it does not do as a couple of the collection's essays. Even if one for what it does, and my several criticisms speak were to grant that the early modern period saw simultaneously to its strengths as well as its weak‐ the development of new forms of gender-diferen‐ nesses. First, it is simply not enough to announce tiated disciplinary mechanisms (a la Foucault, the passing of previous scholarly opinion--the vol‐ who is not mentioned), this is not at all to say that ume's eponymous "paradigm"--especially one Locke's understanding is identical to, say, whose limitations have been established and Luther's, Wesley's, or any other writer Coudert widely recognized within the discipline for at mentions. least twenty years. One must go beyond Ariès to The fnal essay in Childhood in the Middle something else, even if in a provisional way. Ages and the Renaissance, is Christopher Carl‐ Classen's call for a mentalité-based interdisci‐ smith's pedagogically oriented "The Child in the plinarity is inadequate if it yields more of the Classroom: Teaching a Course on the History of same. Only Dzon and Reed rise to the challenge of Childhood in Medieval/Renaissance Europe." Carl‐ interdisciplinarity (as traditionally understood); smith's essay is based upon his experience teach‐ Auslander, Clifton, and Pigg bring to bear upon ing "Childhood in Premodern Europe" at the Uni‐ their subjects theoretically informed cultural per‐ versity of Massachussets – Lowell (whose website spectives. at http://faculty.uml.edu/ccarlsmith/ teaching/ In my view, a better parallel case is not 43.329 was available as of November 2007). Carl‐ Kuhn's scientifcally infected notion of a para‐ smith's purpose is to "ponder the rationale, the re‐ digm shift, but the growth of feminist thought, sources, and the risk-reward ratio of teaching" which the history of childhood roughly parallels, such a course (p. 416). The primary reason to to which childhood studies is indebted, and whose study pre-modern childhood, according to Carl‐ maturation is often characterized (not unprob‐ smith, is "that we need to know about the roots of lematically) as waves. Admittedly "frst-", "sec‐ modern practices in order to understand their ond-", and "third-wave" feminism are themselves contemporary application" (p. 417)--an assertion contentious terms, but it is worth noting that Ar‐ that is probably debatable. To Carlsmith, such a iès' Centuries of Childhood appeared in English in course also opposes a Whiggish (developmentally 1962 and Betty Freidan's The Feminine Mystique superior) view of Western culture and ofers stu‐ appeared in 1963. What might be called the frst dents the chance "to witness a paradigm shift in wave of historical childhood studies is rooted mid-stride" (p. 417) as the study of pre-modern frmly in (and in reaction to) Ariès and identifes childhood changes. Carlsmith then turns to a brief the appearance of children in literary and histori‐ summary of secondary and primary sources that cal texts. In parallel to the literary-critical analy‐ focuses upon their usefulness in the classroom be‐

9 H-Net Reviews ses of feminism, the second wave investigates the one accepts the premise that medieval parents social, cultural, and semiotic systems of which "loved" their children or were "devoted" to them, children are an essential part and explores the was that love expressed in one text of a piece with overly political dimensions of those systems. A the love expressed in another? What are the third wave in historical childhood studies might durable cultural afects of that devotion? With im‐ explore a variety of issues, including childhood portant exceptions like Auslander, Clifton, Ruys, agency and resistance, the cultural deployment of Dover, and Pigg (for medieval texts) and Vitullo children and childhood, and an ongoing critique and Reed (for early modern texts), too many of of the representation and political dynamics of the essays settle for a frst-wave approach that children and childhood. If generally parallel to says, "Look! There are children in these texts and feminist studies, third-wave studies in the history there is evidence that they were cared for in their of childhood might equally critique essentialist cultures." Of course, uncovering medieval and conceptions of children and childhood and the early modern texts featuring children is impor‐ very presuppositions upon which the discipline tant, but ultimately this method does not actually has fashioned itself; critique must therefore con‐ break with Ariès because even Ariès admitted sistently include self-critique. The dynamism of that pre-modern parents did indeed love their such a nomenclature describes the ebb and fow children. of ideas and writers as they build upon one anoth‐ Third, and related to the frst two points, on er, one receding though never really disappearing the whole, the anthology is caught in a generally as another waxes toward a powerful crest and in‐ unacknowledged (double) modernist presupposi‐ tersects with social, political, and cultural con‐ tion. That is, the introduction and many of the es‐ cerns. So, what is necessary in the development of says still (1), posit a teleological narrative of his‐ historical childhood studies (and what is now ap‐ torical progress that culminates in the contempo‐ pearing in diferent areas of study) are new ap‐ rary Western experience, and (2), tacitly embrace proaches informed by contemporary literary and the tenets of developmental psychology (itself a cultural theory--something missing from many of modern construct) as a normative model. To im‐ the essays here--and from these theories will pose developmental notions uncritically upon emerge diferent trajectories rather an a cohesive pre-modern persons is to risk a premature and in‐ new paradigm. complete understanding of the distinctiveness (as Second, and allied to the frst, the book’s in‐ opposed to alterity) of medieval and early modern troduction and many of the essays register little if cultures. Fourth, while I appreciate a collection any critical self-refection upon the terms and that consciously links the essays to one another methods structuring their analyses. To take just through intertextual references and footnotes, one immediate possibility, even if one accepts the Classen's introduction, as methodical as it is, does troubling trans-historical assumption and asser‐ not warrant the lauditory references to it given by tion that medievals valued their children much some of the chapters. Classen is neither the frst to like we do in the present, it would be productive see beyond Ariès nor is he the most convincing to question just exactly what afectivity and at‐ exponent of what one might term the post-Ariès tachment, sentiment and emotion not only mean study of pre-modern children and childhood. His but also do in these texts and their attendant cul‐ chief contribution here is in his encyclopedic tures. These are not unambiguously positive summary of some previous work and preliminary terms in many cases, and parents may be lovingly engagement with a number of Middle High Ger‐ attached to their children even in the most de‐ man texts. His analysis of MHG texts could stand structive ways (as Coudert suggests). Or, even if on its own as an essay, while the introduction

10 H-Net Reviews might have framed more sharply the chapters which followed. Finally, as to the normal quibbles with book construction and production, the text allowed a number of words to be broken at odd moments that appear to be the result of the soft‐ ware used to prepare camera-ready copy, and a volume as large and dense as this one could be more useful with a summative bibliography and detailed subject index. Despite reservations and criticisms, this is an anthology of substantial weight. It should be read in a variety of felds and can be used proftably in literature classrooms. It is fair to say that we are in the midst of a renaissance in the study of me‐ dieval and early modern childhood, and because the value of an academic anthology can be found in the number of questions it raises and the prob‐ lems it highlights, Albrecht Classen's Childhood in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: The Results of a Paradigm Shift in the History of Mentality is a useful contribution to the ongoing discussion in the quickly developing study of pre-modern chil‐ dren and childhood. Note [1]. Philippe Aries, Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life trans. Robert Baldick (New York: Vintage Books, 1962),128.

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Citation: Daniel T. Kline. Review of Classen, Albrecht, ed. Childhood in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: The Results of a Paradigm Shift in the History of Mentality. H-Childhood, H-Net Reviews. October, 2008.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=22822

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