In his classic Centuries of Childhood
(1962), historian Philippe Ariès argued that the view of childhood as a distinct period of life emerged only in the 16th and 17th centuries. Medieval adults, Ariès said, often viewed children as miniature adults. Building on others' subsequent research, Orme (From Childhood to Chivalry; etc.), professor of history at Exeter University, challenges Ariès's widely accepted views, demonstrating in exhaustive detail that medieval culture indeed distinguished between child and adult experience, and that children occupied a special place in society. Orme carefully examines each stage of childhood from birth—clearly an auspicious event in the medieval world—to adolescence. Since birth in the Middle Ages was fraught with dangers, the Church provided women with relics to assure a safe delivery. Royal women undergoing labor borrowed the girdle of Virgin Mary; poorer women laid objects such as jasper stones or drawings of the cross across their stomachs to ensure a healthy and uneventful birth. Parents remembered children's birthdays by associating the day with a saint's feast day, but apart from records kept by royal families, there were few written birth records. Children devised songs, rhymes and games using cherry pits and hazelnuts, for instance; toys ranged from simple peashooters hollowed from balsam wood to more elaborate dolls and mechanical toys made for royalty. As children grew up, boys did manual labor alongside their fathers while girls helped their mothers with domestic tasks. Orme's fascinating study reveals medieval society through a keen look at its youngest inhabitants. Meticulous detail and 125 luscious illustrations, 75 in color, make this an elegant and definitive study. (Dec.)
