#nicholas orme

[semper-legens]

89. Tudor Children, by Nicholas Orme

Owned?: No, library Page count: 230 My summary: The story of the past is so often the story of adults. We learn how adults lived, and loved, and worked, and died, but their children are little more than appendages to their tale. But all of those adults were children once, and lived and learned and grew in their own unique ways. This is the story of the children of the Tudors, and how their lives were shaped as they grew into adulthood. My rating: 4/5 My commentary:

Not a research book, but this is weirdly thematic with the attitudes to family and sex and marriage stuff I've been reading about of late. The period's earlier than my usual sphere of interest, but still. I don't often find myself interested in the Tudors - it's a period of English history that gets over-exposed, because of Henry VIII and his wives and then the glorification of Elizabeth I - but that's not to say that I don't like reading about it from time to time. And the subject of this book, the lives of children, is interesting! Children often get overlooked when you're talking about a particular era, which is a shame, because I find the lives of and attitudes towards children to be fascinating. The further back you go in history, the further the goalposts are moved on what counts as childhood. After all, Tudor children as young as five or six could potentially go into work - childhood wasn't seen necessarily as a state of innocence the way that we see it today, thanks to shifting religious views on original sin and corruption. Childhood in and of itself is such a fascinating topic, and that's why I picked this up.

And I'm glad I did, because it's a nice little book! It discusses the life of Tudor children through a few different angles - school, religion, work, play - and tries to give a well-rounded and well-balanced view on each, noting popular historical misconceptions where they might arise. For example, apparently it wasn't that uncommon for more working class children to be educated, or at the very least to know their letters, even in this era where schooling was reasonably expensive and would take children away from work in the family business, if that was applicable. Girls were educated too, and not just the girls of the nobility! Obviously illiteracy was far more widespread then than now, but still, the idea that education was not just for the rich was an interesting one to explore. Another interesting thing is that the further back you go in history, the less likely it is that primary sources survive, but Orme acknowledges that and tries to reconstruct the history as best he can, most notably in the chapter on play and games. He presents the evidence as far as we can assemble it, and offers educated hypotheses for things we don't know. It's a good approach, and refreshing to read, particularly after the last book I read on this topic. Well worth checking out if you're at all interested!

Next, short stories from off the beaten path.

[malorydaily]

'Children seldom feature in literature from England before 1400, although some romances describe how their heroes and heroines were born and brought up. After that date, however, children’s literature begins to survive on a significant scale in the English language. It includes works of instruction, including short works on table manners, moral precepts, and hunting, and a few stories, notably a comic tale in verse called The Friar and the Boy. There is also evidence that adolescent children read adult fiction, such as romances, the works of Chaucer, and ballads of Robin Hood.'

– Nicholas Orme, Childhood in Medieval England, c. 500 - 1500

[principleofplenitude]

In 1960 the French historian Philippe Aries published Centuries of Childhood, a book whose once-controversial thesis—that in medieval society “the idea of childhood did not exist”—took aim at every piety regarding the unique status of children. Writing in that inimitable—though frequently imitated—”she mates, she kills” style of high French theory, Aries argued that, up until roughly the 15th century, childhood was not perceived as a distinct phase of human life; instead, children were perceived as little more than Mini-Me’s. To us moderns, with our nuclear, bourgeois, and sentimental family values, Aries’ medieval home appears almost totally alien. Children intermingled fully with adults, wore the same clothes, played the same games. They were not regarded as sexually innocent and thus psychologically delicate and were never segregated away from the adult pupils more common in French schools at the time. Parents did not bond deeply with young children, as so many died in infancy or soon after, and by the time their children hit 8 or so, parents often fostered them in other people’s homes to work as domestic servants. Aries’ most famous evidence is the iconography of the Middle Ages, which depicts children as adults, only smaller. In our own world of mass marketing, universal schooling, and hypervigilant parenting, we’ve come to isolate virtually every six-month span in a child’s life as a separate and unique epoch, each with its own set of tastes and developmental milestones.

“Farewell to Mini-Me“ from Slate

[bayduh]

Nicholas Orme, Childhood in Medieval England, c.500-1500

[bayduh]

Nicholas Orme, Childhood in Medieval England, c.500-1500

[bayduh]

Nicholas Orme, Childhood in Medieval England, c.500-1500

[zielenna]

Nicholars Orme, Medieval Children

[thatbrontide]

In these analyses, infancy became an age of its own, lasting from growth in the womb or birth until the age of seven. Childhood . . . followed from seven to fourteen, and adolescence . . . from fourteen to twenty-eight.

Nicholas Orme in an analysis of As You Like It, referring to life stages in the Middle Ages