Today, children are kings, tsars, and emperors, not only for their families, but for society as a whole. But in the Middle Ages, children were treated so differently that 21st-century parents would probably have their hair stand on end! French historian Philippe Aries, who studied the history of childhood in different eras, even concluded that children were not always valued in those dark times.
Today I want to share with you some very interesting details of medieval childhood and tell you why a child's life was like real torture, why even ordinary baby cradles were considered dangerous, and is it true that even the King of France was terrified of knives?
When, in your opinion, should childhood end? Maybe, according to the law, at the age of 18? Or when a child finishes school, for example? By the way, for some, childhood does not end at 30, 40, or 50, and this, by the way, is not always a bad thing! But in the Middle Ages, childhood ended for local children at the age of 7. At this age, a child was already considered a small “adult” and could well start working and become another breadwinner in the family.
In poor families, children were sent to study and work with local artisans. Moreover, seven-year-olds worked on a par with adults, without any concessions, but they were paid much less. What can we say about the Middle Ages, if working children of 7 years old were the norm in Europe some three centuries ago!
During the rapid growth of industrial capitalism, seven-year-old children were forced to “plow” for 12-14 hours a day in stuffy rooms. And no lunch break, cartoons, sweets and games in the fresh air! So, you turned 7, that's it – childhood is over! Get up and go earn your own bread. Such is the philosophy…
But, by the way, even up to the age of 7, children were not the darlings of fate and the favorites of the family – they worked only at home. 3-4-year-olds cleaned, helped adults feed livestock, washed dishes. Five-year-olds looked after the younger ones and worked in the fields with adults. In Icelandic sagas, there were often lines that even very small boys set out to avenge their murdered parents.
And, as terrible as it may sound, at the age of 7 children were already considered to be the continuers of the family. A couple more years and they could officially get married! So, for girls, the “marriageable” age was 12, and for boys – 14. However, girls from noble families could be married off at the age of 7.
Children began to bear full criminal responsibility, up to the death penalty, from the age of 10-11. This is childhood without childhood. It is not for nothing that some French researchers believed that the term “childhood”, in the usual sense, was discovered and understood by humanity only in the era of the Modern Age. In the Middle Ages, childhood simply had no place! This explains the complete indifference of artists of the Middle Ages, up to the 12th century, to this topic.
As historian Philippe Aries wrote, “the stay in the family as a child was too brief and too insignificant to have time or reason to remember it or to awaken feelings about it.”
In medieval Europe, beds appeared quite late among ordinary people – only in the 14th-16th centuries, and for a long time, the poor slept in rows, while in wealthier families, which still had beds, the entire extended family slept in one bed.
For example, among the Irish, it looked like this: the eldest daughter slept away from the door, near the wall, followed by all the other girls, in the middle slept the mother and father, then the sons, and at the very edge – the elderly or guests of the house. Interestingly, this way of sleeping lasted almost until the 20th century.
Descriptions of the life of Breton farmers in the 19th century have survived to this day: “The whole family and their servants slept in one huge bed, leaving room even for guests.” By the way, in one of the books of that time, the author even describes how to arrange such a bed for several people, so that it was as wide as 3 meters!
And back then, they slept half-sitting, with pillows under their backs, because they believed that only the dead could lie in a horizontal position.
Well, in the late Middle Ages in Britain, people even slept in closets. They were much warmer, and, after all, in a closet you could be alone and hide from unnecessary eyes, including children's. However, medieval parents did not try too hard to shield their children from unnecessary spectacles. For example, they took their little ones to public executions and sincerely considered this activity extremely useful, since it cleansed them of filth.
One Venetian, while in London at the end of the 14th century, was simply amazed by the attitude of the English towards their own children. Up to 7-9 years old, a child grew up in a family, next to his parents, and then he was sent to be raised in a strange family, regardless of social and material status. This custom was incredibly popular and widespread throughout Europe and survived almost until the 18th century. Moreover, giving one's children to be raised by strangers was accepted by everyone: both the poor and the rich. Well, in exchange, another child also came to the family, who could be actively exploited.
In fact, the birth family did not participate in the socialization process of the child at all. It was believed that in someone else's home, the child would behave better than in his parents'. Here is what a Florentine merchant advised in the 14th century: “If you have a son who is good for nothing, give him to a merchant to send him to distant lands. Or send him away to one of your close friends. There is nothing you can do: as long as your son stays with you, he will not find a use for himself in life.”
Aristocrats gave their children to wealthy relatives for upbringing. Townspeople sent their 7-year-old children to be apprenticed to artisans. Poor children had it oh how hard! In one of the letters, the boy complained: “All the pleasures that I knew as a child from 3 to 10 years old, while I was under the care of my mother and father, were replaced by torment and pain.”
So what to do if you're starving? In the Middle Ages, there were exceptional ways to make money: children were sold or given into slavery. Today, this sounds truly wild… Of course, this method was resorted to only in the most extreme cases – during mass famine, for example.
As the same historian Philippe Aries writes, “the whole point is that the family then did not have an emotional function. This does not mean that there was no love in it. On the contrary, you encounter love very often. Sometimes after engagement, more often after wedding, when love was created and supported by living together. But let us emphasize: feelings between spouses, between parents and children were not necessary – not for existence, not for harmony in it. If feelings did appear, it was just an additional plus. Apparently, rare.”
In the Middle Ages, a quarter to a third of all children died in the first months of life. About 40% did not live to be 9 years old. According to researchers, this is why parents had such a strange callousness towards young children – too many died. People did not want to get attached to someone who was so easy to lose.
This explains the words of the famous Michel Montaigne: “I lost two or three in infancy. It is not that I did not regret them, but I did not feel it acutely.” Philippe Aries wrote: “Someone could worry, but the general rule was not to pay too much attention to it, because soon another appeared in its place. The child remained anonymous in a sense.”
The most common causes of child death, according to the Lives of the Saints and coroners' reports, were suffocation, scalding from boiling water, and drowning. Do you know why suffocation came first? Mothers could accidentally suffocate their children in their sleep.
In a medieval manual on absolution, the priest was advised to ask parishioners: “Did you crush your child in your sleep?” Some bishops were so fierce that they forbade parents from taking their babies to bed.
Even cradles were a serious threat to infants. They were hung from the ceiling, and as a result, either through carelessness or through the actions of the nurse who might rock the cradle too hard, or through her negligence, infants would often fall out and be crushed to death or remain disabled for life. This was also a serious factor in infant mortality.
But in noble families, as the Franciscan monk Berthold of Regensburg states in one of his sermons, children faced another danger: they often died from overeating. Numerous relatives literally stuffed babies with food while the poor died of hunger.
There was no mourning for the death of a child under the age of 7. But such a familiar fascination and obsession with children in mothers, according to researchers, appeared only in the Renaissance. This is evidenced by the numerous portraits of women with babies that became popular at that time.
And it was customary to swaddle poor babies very tightly. Famous doctors of the Middle Ages assured that otherwise the child would develop incorrectly. And the child had to be unwrapped strictly 3-4 times a day — no more and no less. And then to wipe with a cloth for hygiene, and then swaddle tightly again.
This was also the reason for the high mortality of infants. In 1254, the physician Aldobrandini of Siena, in his treatise “Corporeal Statute”, recommended that before swaddling a child, he should cover it with rose petals and rub it with salt. Because in this case, the child would take on any shape, like wax.
Such a tight swaddling, and even with salt, was simply necessary for the future beauty of the child. It was believed that an experienced nanny, by pulling the diaper tighter, literally molded a handsome man out of him! There was also a belief that if the baby was not swaddled tightly enough, its organs would move freely inside the body, since they had not yet had time to settle down as they should, and could end up in the wrong places.
And, of course, I can't help but mention the most effective and popular method of raising children in the Middle Ages – beating with rods. So in the 12th century, the knight-crusade Philip of Navarre advised in his work “The Four Ages of Man”: “You shouldn't show your great love to a child, because it can make him proud and start behaving badly. And when you see that he is starting to misbehave, you should severely punish him, scold him. And if he still doesn't calm down, you should whip him. And if that doesn't work either, you should put him in prison.”
It was believed that corporal punishment had an exceptionally healing role for a little person, as it weaned them from bad deeds. There was even a day like that – December 28, declared the Day of the Holy Innocents. On this strange holiday, parents were obliged to beat their own children.
As a result, children, just like that, for the sake of education, were mercilessly beaten up until the 20th century. Even kings were not spared from this scourge. For example, the same king from “The Three Musketeers”, Louis XIII, often woke up in horror at night, expecting a morning flogging, as in childhood. When he was crowned at the age of 8, he was flogged so badly before that that he declared: “I would rather do without all these honors than be flogged again.”
This is what childhood is like, in the medieval style…
Note
The Middle Ages spanned over a thousand years (approximately the 5th-15th centuries) and vast geographical regions. The practices and attitudes toward children presented in the article could vary considerably depending on time, place, social status, and culture. The article uses generalizations that do not reflect the full complexity and diversity of the historical period.
The information is based on the interpretations of historians (in particular, Philip Aries, whose views have been significantly reinterpreted in modern historiography). Modern scholars continue to debate many aspects of childhood in the Middle Ages, in particular the degree of emotional connection between parents and children.
The article describes realities that are radically different from modern norms of morality, children's rights, and educational practices. Today's understanding of childhood, parenting, healthcare, and social standards is the result of centuries of evolution.
The information in the article is solely educational and historical in nature. It is in no way a recommendation for action, advice on upbringing, medical practices, child safety or any other aspects of modern life. Any historical practices mentioned (such as corporal punishment, early child labor, child trafficking, etc.) are unacceptable and criminal in modern civilized society and are punishable by law.
The article is intended to broaden the reader's horizons regarding historical differences in attitudes toward childhood, rather than to provide expert advice or guidance for the present.
