Growing Up in Medieval London: The Experience of Childhood in History

By Barbara A. Hanawalt

Book Overview

When Barbara Hanawalt's acclaimed history The Ties That Bound first appeared, it was hailed for its unprecedented research and vivid re-creation of medieval life. David Levine, writing in The New York Times Book Review, called Hanawalt's book "as stimulating for the questions it asks as for the answers it provides" and he concluded that "one comes away from this stimulating book with the same sense of wonder that Thomas Hardy's Angel Clare felt : ] 'The impressionable peasant leads a larger, fuller, more dramatic life than the pachydermatous king.'"
Now, in Growing Up in Medieval London, Hanawalt again reveals the larger, fuller, more dramatic life of the common people, in this instance, the lives of children in London. Bringing together a wealth of evidence drawn from court records, literary sources, and books of advice, Hanawalt weaves a rich tapestry of the life of London youth during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Much of what she finds is eye opening. She shows for instance that--contrary to the belief of some historians--medieval adults did recognize and pay close attention to the various stages of childhood and adolescence. For instance, manuals on childrearing, such as "Rhodes's Book of Nurture" or "Seager's School of Virtue," clearly reflect the value parents placed in laying the proper groundwork for a child's future. Likewise, wardship cases reveal that in fact London laws granted orphans greater protection than do our own courts.
Hanawalt also breaks ground with her innovative narrative style. To bring medieval childhood to life, she creates composite profiles, based on the experiences of real children, which provide a more vivid portrait than otherwise possible of the trials and tribulations of medieval youths at work and at play. We discover through these portraits that the road to adulthood was fraught with danger. We meet Alison the Bastard Heiress, whose guardians married her off to their apprentice in order to gain control of her inheritance. We learn how Joan Rawlyns of Aldenham thwarted an attempt to sell her into prostitution. And we hear the unfortunate story of William Raynold and Thomas Appleford, two mercer's apprentices who found themselves forgotten by their senile master, and abused by his wife. These composite portraits, and many more, enrich our understanding of the many stages of life in the Middle Ages.
Written by a leading historian of the Middle Ages, these pages evoke the color and drama of medieval life. Ranging from birth and baptism, to apprenticeship and adulthood, here is a myth-shattering, innovative work that illuminates the nature of childhood in the Middle Ages.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195093844
• ISBN13: 9780195093841
• Release Date: February 1995
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.64 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Wonderfully Enjoyable

I noticed this on the shelves in the Library while looking for another one on some topic or another and thought it might make an interesting read over my lunch hour. It did. I love the statistics, the stories, the perspective. My only complaint is the end seems a bit more abrupt then expected. Definitely worth a look.

Fascinating

I found this book by accident in my local bookstore as I was trying to find something on the history of childhood diseases. I am not a professional historian. Nevertheless, although it may sound silly, I literally couldn't put this book down. I read it at one sitting. So few history books give a true picture of what life was like in some earlier era and this book is really illuminating, covering a wide variety of topics, from birth to late adolescence. Because the historical record is a little thin as regards children's experience, the author in some cases must speculate, but always does so reasonably and with support from the data obtained from court proceedings and other sources. I enjoyed the book so much I considered writing the author a personal thank-you letter!

Vivid and carefully researched

Growing Up in Medieval London is not only an informative book, but interesting to read. By examining documents which still exist -- medieval court cases, censuses, parish registers, and tax listings -- Barbara Hanawalt reconstructs the lives of children and teenagers in medieval London. She dispels commonly held myths about this period of history -- for example, that medieval people did not recognise childhood as a distinct life stage, or that because of high child mortality they did not become psychologically attached to their offspring. The archival materials that Hanawalt presents tell a different story. Medieval Londoners were careful to protect the well-being of young orphans, and although corporal punishment of children, apprentices and students was tolerated to a degree we would find unacceptable today, cases of physical or sexual abuse were punished by the courts. Children in medieval London were less prone to accidental deaths, as demonstrated by the coroners' records, than children in villages, perhaps because in the close communities in which they were raised neighbours kept a closer watch on children playing in the vicinities of their homes.Hanawalt addresses the material environment in which young Londoners grew up, and explores the differing experiences of orphans and wards of the court, well-to-do heirs and heiresses, bastards, schoolboys, apprentices and servants. Girls' upbringing and opportunities were not the same as boys, and fewer documents exist to record their lives, but Hanawalt draws attention to those records that can illuminate their experience. This is an innovative, fascinating book for anyone with an interest in the Middle Ages.