Skip Knox submitted a new blog post:
History for Fantasy Writers: Medieval Childhood
by E.L. Skip Knox
A common understanding about the Middle Ages goes something like this: people didn't love their children the way we do today, because so many died in infancy or childhood. Sometimes parents didn't even name or baptize their children until they were three years old because they didn't want to become too attached. Childhood was brief, as can be seen in old paintings where children of a very young age are already dressed as adults. Noble children were sent off as a page at age seven and common children were apprenticed out by age ten, so children many times were not even raised by their own parents. The legal age of marriage was fourteen for boys and twelve for girls, so obviously childhood was pretty much over by then. Boy golly, weren’t those Middle Ages a drag?
You may be guessing that this is wrong, pretty much start to finish. Good guess! So, what do we know about childhood in the Middle Ages, and in what ways might this prove useful to the fantasy writer?
Babies
Infancy was defined much the same way all across Europe: it lasted until the kid got teeth and could walk. The child had already survived its first big challenge, childbirth. With luck, so had the mother. Babies were fussed over and coddled (and swaddled) much the same as they are today.
What about, I hear someone...
Continue reading the Original Blog Post.
History for Fantasy Writers: Medieval Childhood
by E.L. Skip Knox
A common understanding about the Middle Ages goes something like this: people didn't love their children the way we do today, because so many died in infancy or childhood. Sometimes parents didn't even name or baptize their children until they were three years old because they didn't want to become too attached. Childhood was brief, as can be seen in old paintings where children of a very young age are already dressed as adults. Noble children were sent off as a page at age seven and common children were apprenticed out by age ten, so children many times were not even raised by their own parents. The legal age of marriage was fourteen for boys and twelve for girls, so obviously childhood was pretty much over by then. Boy golly, weren’t those Middle Ages a drag?
You may be guessing that this is wrong, pretty much start to finish. Good guess! So, what do we know about childhood in the Middle Ages, and in what ways might this prove useful to the fantasy writer?
Babies
Infancy was defined much the same way all across Europe: it lasted until the kid got teeth and could walk. The child had already survived its first big challenge, childbirth. With luck, so had the mother. Babies were fussed over and coddled (and swaddled) much the same as they are today.
What about, I hear someone...
Continue reading the Original Blog Post.