Cruelty to children in the Middle Ages. Childhood in medieval Europe. When childhood ends

23.06.2020

At all times, the royal family was special and towered over the rest of the world and ordinary people. The life of royalty was full of pleasures and privileges, which they enjoyed by virtue of status and, as was commonly believed, divine will. And, of course, the life of members of the royal family was the subject of attention of the common people. Nothing attracted curious ears and eyes like the birth of a child of royal blood.

The people of Britain (and not only) today are looking forward to the birth of the children of Duchess Catherine and Prince William. But the details of royal babies are less exciting these days, as the duchess gave birth like most people in the modern world - in a clean, well-lit room with a few medical staff nearby. Is it the case in the Middle Ages ..

1. Nothing less than 200 people watched the queen give birth

The birth of a new member of the royal family was not just an ordinary day, it was a political event that could have an impact on the fate of the entire state. This event could portend the success or fall of the monarchy, so people were worried about the outcome of childbirth. For this reason, the birth of a child of royal blood was not a private affair of the family, but an event that caused public concern. Will it be a boy? Future king? As the future ruler, the child belonged more to the people than to the queen herself, so she gave birth in the presence of a large number of spectators, each of whom carefully watched the process in order to ascertain the field and health of the child and avoid deception.

When Marie Antoinette - Queen of France - gave birth in 1778, 200 people were present in her bedroom. The very moment of the birth of a child was so important that when the midwife uttered the words: "The Queen is in labor," in the same second, hundreds of courtesans rushed into the darkened room. The king even ordered tapestries to be fastened around the queen's bed with special cords so that they would not be accidentally torn off by a frenzied crowd. The scene was so unbearable that Marie Antoinette fainted from the heat, and the audience climbed on the furniture in order to see the birth of the future monarch.

2. The room where the Queen gave birth was styled like a womb.

About a month before the day of the birth, the Queen ceased to take any part in social life and moved to special chambers, where she remained until the day X. This was not the easiest and not the most pleasant period in her life. Despite the luxury of decoration, the conditions in which the queen had to live during this period were very harsh. All the windows in the room were boarded up with shutters and closed with thick curtains, and therefore fresh air practically did not penetrate into the room. The light was also considered dangerous because it could damage the queen's eyes. Tapestries with serene religious scenes and landscapes could be hung in the bedroom. Everything was supposed to help alleviate the condition of the expectant mother, and not upset.

It was believed that wall paintings depicting people or animals could cause strange visions in a pregnant woman and contribute to the appearance of deformities in a child. The idea was to make the room feel dark, safe, and reminiscent of the womb itself, so that the queen could give birth to the monarch in perfect comfort. Regardless of the season, there was a living fire in the room, and the chambers were visited by women who spoke only in whispers. Fresh reeds and grass covered the floor and were changed every day to keep the room clean and fresh. If the queen felt too heavy from the smoke and darkness, the area near her bed was lit with candles, and this gave at least a little light. As we have already said, the room itself symbolized the uterus, so everything that somehow suggested thoughts of limitation or isolation was eliminated or corrected. Closet doors were opened, all the hairpins were pulled out of the hair, all the knots were untied - anything, just to direct the flow of energy outward. Around the queen were often women who sang songs for her. Their voices and prayers to Saint Margaret (who supposedly was able to get out of the womb of the dragon itself, which swallowed her) were supposed to ease the condition of the pregnant queen.

3. At that time, people believed that painful childbirth was a punishment for original sin.

Although the birth of a child is now perceived by families as a holiday, for many centuries the unbearable pain was considered an obligatory and necessary part of the childbirth process. The agony experienced by women during childbirth was closely associated with the fall of Eve in the Garden of Eden and symbolized the extent of her original sin. Painkillers were not used even in royal families.

4. Women from the royal family used various substances - from chloroform to cocaine - to relieve pain during childbirth

Women in royal families were used to a certain standard of living, and of course they didn't want to experience the pain of childbirth. Throughout history, childbirth has been considered a very painful process that no one could avoid, but not all queens were ready to accept this fate. Queen Victoria, who lived in the 1800s and gave birth to nine children, launched a campaign to allow royal mothers to use painkillers to ease the birth process.

When Queen Victoria was giving birth to her son Leopold, she found a doctor who used chloroform to relieve pain. "Oh, that blessed chloroform," she later wrote, "soothing delightful remedy." But obtaining pain relief during childbirth was no easy task, as the request clashed with the moral belief that women deserve pain during childbirth—it is their destiny. But after the protests of Queen Victoria, these beliefs began to change, and women began to politely ask for anesthesia, which was then used as ether.

This shift in thinking not only made life easier for the royals, but also encouraged the emergence of new medical approaches. Doctors began to offer women in labor various substances - nitric oxide, quinine, opium, and even cocaine. By the end of the century, royal women were considered too delicate to endure pain without the use of painkillers. They also sometimes used drugs for non-medical purposes, which stunned their husbands. For those who wanted even more extreme sensations, doctors offered a drug cocktail that calmed the woman in labor to the point that she did not remember anything. In some cases, the drugs caused hallucinations, and this required doctors to blindfold the pregnant woman or even hold her with their hands.

5. It was believed that behavior and care during pregnancy could determine the sex of the child

Knowledge about the human reproductive system in the Middle Ages was mediocre. Many people, especially men, believed that the female genitalia were actually male organs turned inside out. It was believed that the uterus and ovaries were twisted so that a woman could have children, but were essentially male organs. This belief allowed men to treat women as subordinates due to the fact that their organs are kind of underdeveloped and are only an incomplete version of their male counterparts.

Not surprisingly, the views on what determined the sex of the unborn child were very strange. They did not understand that the sex of the child depended on the sperm of the man, and always placed the blame for the birth of a female child on the mother. Medieval thinkers and herbalists also believed that certain foods or drugs could affect the sex of an unborn child. Royal bedchamber experts (yes, royals had some) describe how a mother-to-be would have to lie in order for a male heir to be born. According to these beliefs, the sex of the child was not determined until the very moment of birth, so it was always possible to influence the divine decision during pregnancy.

6. Unsanitary conditions often led to fatal infections

In the Middle Ages, people did not know much about sanitation. Even the richest queen often gave birth in conditions that would now be called "unsanitary", and this created a serious risk to the health of both mother and child. The disease known as puerperal fever, or puerperal fever, a septic infection of the reproductive organs, was very common and always resulted in the death of the new mother.

7. The Queen couldn't attend her baby's christening after giving birth.

For about 6 weeks after giving birth, the queen had to hide from society. The child was immediately accepted by society and received recognition by passing the rite of baptism, and the newly-baptized mother had to remain in her bedroom for some more time until she was blessed and “cleansed” by the priest. Only then could she return to her royal duties. It was believed that such a "cleansing" was necessary after such a dirty, as it was believed, process.

8. Pregnant women from the royal family could not know about their situation until the 5th month.

Pregnancy at that time was shrouded in mystery and fear. Images of pregnant women are everywhere these days and the birth process is well understood, but for most of history this was not the case. Childbirth in the Middle Ages was a risky business, as all mothers (both rich and poor) faced the possibility of complications or even death. At that time, every third woman died during childbirth, since medical knowledge was not based on science, but on superstition, speculation and meaningless rituals.

Many women at that time did not know about their position until they felt the first movements in the stomach. This usually happened at about 5 months, but usually the woman was not sure when the baby would be born. There were no pregnancy tests yet, so the queens sought the advice of a doctor who examined their urine to determine if she was really expecting an heir. It was important for the nation to get this information as soon as possible.

9. Women wrote a will before childbirth in case they did not survive them.

The loss of a queen or a child was one of the biggest fears associated with a royal birth. In 1533, when Queen Elizabeth I was born, the practice of childbirth was considered so dangerous that all royal women were encouraged to write wills before giving birth.

10. The pregnant queen received valuable gifts.

Royal women of the Renaissance who carried a child under their hearts were usually given a special gift - a tray on which biblical scenes of birth and celebrations were depicted. There were various treats on the tray, such as chicken soup and sweets. When the expectant mother ate them, the trays were hung on the wall as a decoration. These were valuable keepsakes.

Eremina O.N. (Millerovo, Rostov region, MBOU gymnasium No. 1)

Tkacheva N.I. (Millerovo, Rostov region, MBOU gymnasium No. 1)

1. Ariesa Philip "Child and family life under the Old Order" Yekaterinburg, 1999

2. Immortal Yu. L. Life and Death in the Middle Ages. Essays on the demographic history of France. M.: Nauka, 1991.

3. J. Gies Marriage and family in the Middle Ages M., Russian political encyclopedia, 2002-384 p.

4. Gulik Z.N. Cruelty towards children in the Middle Ages http://sun.tsu.ru/mminfo

5. Zider, R. Social history of the family in Western and Central Europe (late XVIII-XX centuries). Moscow: Vlados, 1997. 302 p. pp. 38-39.

6. Demoz Lloyd "Psychohistory" Rostov-on-Don "Phoenix" 2000

7. Leonov S.A. "The evolution of childhood or what historians do not want to talk about" http://www.b17.ru

8. Nestor "The Life of Theodosius of the Caves" https://studfiles.net

9. Sylvester "Domostroy" https://azbyka.ru

In the history of mankind, attitudes towards children, towards childhood, in general, relations between parents and children have changed very significantly, and in order to understand and appreciate the current stage of our life, it is useful to know how things were in the past.

This academic year, we first got acquainted with the history of the Middle Ages. Studying the culture of everyday life of this period, I discovered one thing that was very curious to me. According to the materials, children in the Medieval West were not treated the way modern parents treat their children. Parents, of course, love their children at all times. But the environment dictates the norms of upbringing, and in the Middle Ages they were rather strange in the modern view.

Object of study: the life of a medieval person. Subject of research: living conditions of children of the Middle Ages. The theme of our study is "Children of the Middle Ages".

The research problem is that modern children do not know how children lived much earlier, in the Middle Ages. However, it is important to remember everything about children that happened to them in any era. It can be confidently asserted that their life was far from today's ideal. “Childhood history is a nightmare from which we have only recently begun to awaken. The deeper into history, the less care for children and the more likely a child is to be killed, abandoned, beaten ... ”It is with these words that the Evolution of Childhood section of the book“ Psychohistory ”by Lloyd de Mose begins. Is that really true? Did parents love their children? We had to find out.

The relevance of the topic of this work is due to the fact that at present children are an important part of society, their problems and joys are becoming the subject of close attention, regardless of age and location. The life of children is becoming more and more interesting, this is facilitated by technological progress and the desire of parents to create ideal conditions for growing up for their child. Today we know about children, if not all, then a significant part.

Childhood is the period from newborn to full social and, consequently, psychological maturity. The modern attitude towards children on the part of adults is an attitude where love and a desire to help in everything reign. In modern society, the ideas of individualism prevail, and the originality of each soul. Has it always been like this?

The novelty of our work lies in the fact that we were engaged in the study and identification of the living conditions of the children of the Middle Ages, using a variety of points of view.

Hypothesis: the life of children in the Middle Ages was much harder than today.

The purpose of the study: to find out what the life of a medieval child was like.

To achieve this goal, we set ourselves the following tasks:

To study the literature and sources devoted to the study of the theme of childhood in the Middle Ages;

Analyze the daily life of a medieval child;

Understand and comprehend the relationship of adults to children in medieval society;

Create a presentation.

Research methods: study of theoretical material, questioning, analysis, comparison, generalization.

Unfortunately, there are practically no historical sources on this issue. One of the most serious works on the problem of medieval childhood are the works of the American historian and psychologist - Lloyd Demoz "Psychohistory", the French historian Philip Aries "Child and family life under the Old Order". It is these works that became the basis of our study. In addition, in our work we used such a source as "Domostroy", the authorship of which is attributed to the priest Sylvester.

Expected results of the study:

1) disclosure of the topic will help students learn more about the life of children in the Middle Ages;

2) the work may be of interest to students in studying the life of their peers in the Middle Ages;

3) the results of the study can be used by teachers in the preparation of lessons, class hours on the topic "Children of the Middle Ages";

4) the work can be used for further research on this topic.

In conclusion, the main conclusions obtained as a result of our study are presented. The practical significance of this work lies in the fact that the results can be used in the lessons of history, social studies and in extracurricular activities.

Chapter I. A Brief Description of the Periods of Childhood in the Middle Ages

People know quite a lot about the history of the Middle Ages from the lives of adults, accomplished people. And if we look at that time through the eyes of children, perhaps we will get a completely different idea of those years.

Scholars who have studied the situation of children in the Middle Ages usually divide childhood into several periods. We also used this periodization.

Childhood: 0 to 7

Child mortality in the Middle Ages was high. About a third of children did not live past the age of five, 10% died within a month after birth. In this regard, children were baptized very early, most often the day after birth.

In poor large families, a newborn could become a burden, and infanticide, especially in the Early Middle Ages, was not uncommon. In the Scandinavian North, the custom of “carrying out” children, that is, leaving them far from home to perish, persisted for some time even after the adoption of Christianity. Sick and weak babies, especially girls, were doomed to death. The child received the right to exist only after the father put him on his knees and moistened his forehead with water.

An almost universal custom was to restrict the freedom of movement of the child with various devices. The most important aspect of a child's life in his early years was swaddling.

As recent medical studies have shown, swaddled babies are extremely passive, their heart rate is slow, they cry less, they sleep much more, and in general they are so quiet and lethargic that they cause very little trouble to parents.

When a child left the diaper age, other methods of restricting mobility were applied to him, in each country and for each era. Sometimes children were tied to chairs so that they could not crawl. Until the nineteenth century, helpers were tied to the clothes of the child in order to better follow him and guide him in the right direction.

Bartholomeus Mettlinger, in his 1473 Book of Children, strongly discourages a mother from breastfeeding her baby in the first 14 days after birth, because her milk has not yet had time to acquire beneficial properties. During these two weeks, the nurse should take care of the feeding, and the author of the work recommends sucking the mother's milk with the help of a she-wolf (as the original text says, but it could have been a puppy). If the mother still wants to breastfeed the baby on her own immediately after birth, it is recommended to give the baby a drop of honey before feeding, and then the mother's milk will not be so harmful to him.

Paleopathology gives us a lot of data - the study of injuries and illnesses of people from their remains. And the bones of children can tell a lot. There were frequent cases of rickets among infants - apparently due to the fact that mothers forced to work hard swaddled them longer (to carry them in the field). In children 6-11 years old, there is an increased growth of pericartilaginous bones - a sign of more frequent injuries associated with the need to work from an early age. Finally, there are a lot of signs of caries (there was little meat and dairy products in the children's diet, the proportion of bread increased).

Either due to employment, or due to life circumstances, parents did not care too much about the safety of their children. Therefore, tragic incidents were very frequent.

Local judges usually list tragic cases with reprimand: “A small child, left unattended, left his parents' house and fell into a pond; a two-year-old girl, being left without supervision, died. Maud, William Bigg's daughter, was left in the care of a blind old woman while her mother went to visit the neighbors. When she returned, she found that the child had fallen into a ditch and drowned. A seven-month-old baby was left in the care of a three-year-old boy. A newborn girl in a cradle was left in the care of three-year-old Agnes; she played in the yard, and when she returned, she found that the baby had suffocated. “Little girls often die when they fall into a river, into a well or into a cauldron on fire,” a contemporary writes admonishingly. “And a five-year-old boy is a bad guardian for an infant.”

The period up to 7 years was considered of little value and ended quickly. And interest in the child arose when he reached the age of 7.

Adolescence: 7 to 12

“Adults in miniature” - this is how they treated children at this age. Even according to church laws, it was believed that if a child can distinguish good from evil, then he has already grown up. Now he is obliged to share all the hardships and work of an adult that exceeds his physical capabilities. The only indulgence was made on the "mind", i.e. at the age of 7-12 years old - this is just a stupid person who has to keep quiet and do whatever he is ordered to do. His occupation is to listen to the elders, to be silent and meekly obey everyone.

As soon as the child left the diaper age, he began to imitate the type of life and relationships that surrounded him. Girls from an early age began to spin, regardless of whether they grew up in a castle or in a village house. Which doesn't mean they always followed in their mothers' footsteps.

Children were sent away from their parents' home, regardless of class: everyone, without exception, had to send their children to other people's homes and in exchange take someone else's children into their own home.

In the 14th century, the Florentine merchant Paolo of Certaldo advised: “If you have a son who is good for nothing, hand him over to the merchant to send him to distant lands. Or send it yourself to one of your close friends... There's nothing to be done. As long as your son stays with you, he will not find any use in life.

It was customary for aristocrats to give their child to be raised by wealthier relatives. And a city dweller could give the child to be trained by the masters. The death of a child at this age has already become a loss for the family, because. she lost a pair of working hands. But there was no mourning, and bitter regret for the loss of his own child. The father had extensive rights in relation to children in a medieval family.

The historical monuments of medieval German legislation assert the right of fathers to sell children in extreme cases, during a famine, with only some restrictions in favor of those sold. So, in the Saxon cities, the law granted the father the right to sell and pawn children during a famine, but in such a way that there was no danger to their lives and oppression of religious beliefs.

The child did not differ from the adult in his clothes, they were only tailored to his height. As is clear from the works of art, the artists were not able to adequately depict children's faces, and this inability again indicates a lack of interest in childhood.

Adulthood

From the age of 12, a full-fledged adult life began. From this age it was possible to enter into marriages (for girls) and completely shoulder all adult work. No discounts are made on physical strength, experience and knowledge. Any violation is punished like a normal adult. Even a court can condemn a teenager on general rules. High mortality among all segments of the population led to the fact that not all children lived to be 20 years old.

According to English sources, after the age of twelve, each boy joined the "Group of Ten" - a legal brotherhood of 10 villagers. Each of these groups was a kind of justice - for the crime of one, all the others could answer. Blood feuds are a thing of the past, the G-10 has become a kind of forerunner of the modern police and policing. Each man from the age of 12 was responsible for the other 9, it was impossible to evade. Anyone who did not join the "Group of Ten" was considered an outlaw.

The role of nurses in the life of a medieval child

The wives of peasants and artisans themselves fed their children, if this was not prevented by some circumstances, for example, the service of the mother. When Raymond Arcene of Montaillou became a maid to a family in the city of Pamière, she gave her illegitimate baby to be brought up in a neighboring village. Later, when she began to take a job during the harvest, she took the child with her and gave it to another village.

Wealthy women in the XIII century. so extensive were the use of wet nurses that parish manuals advised against the practice, as it was contrary to the wisdom of both scripture and science.

Sculptures in churches and miniatures in manuscripts depict the Virgin Mary feeding Jesus, but sermons and parables had no effect on the nobility, who continued to bring nurses into the house not only to feed babies, but also to look after growing children. For example, at Kenilworth Castle, each of the Montfort children had their own nanny.

When choosing a nurse, responsible parents looked for a clean, healthy young woman of good character and ensured that she adhered to the correct regimen and diet. Trotula of Salerno, a female physician from Italy, recommended that the wet nurse get plenty of rest and sleep, abstain from "salty, spicy, sour, and astringent" foods, especially garlic, and avoid excitement. As soon as an infant could eat solid food, Trotula advised that he should be given bits of chicken, pheasant, or partridge breast “the size and shape of acorns. He will be able to hold them in his hand and play with them and, while sucking on them, will swallow them little by little.”

The tradition of giving away children was so strong that it existed in England and America until the eighteenth century, in France until the nineteenth, in Germany until the twentieth. In 1780, the head of the Parisian police gives the following approximate figures: every year 21,000 children are born in the city, of which 17,000 are sent to the villages to nurses, 2,000 or 3,000 are sent to homes for babies, 700 are nursed by wet nurses in the parents' house, and only 700 are breastfed by their mothers. .

1.2. Education methods

There was no special education for children. In principle, the child was not involved. In wealthy aristocratic families, children were given to the nurse immediately after birth. Among artisans and peasants, from an early age, a child crawled around the kitchen and house, unnoticed by anyone. No games, no conversations, no skills were given to the kids.

He had to learn everything himself, looking at adults. Children of this age were not noticed and were not shy.

Beatings, infliction of pain are the main elements of cruel, by the standards of our understanding, upbringing practices. Up until the eighteenth century, a very large percentage of children were beaten regularly. Even belonging to the royal family did not exempt from beatings. Already, as king, Louis XIII often woke up in horror at night, waiting for the morning spanking. On the day of the coronation, eight-year-old Louis was flogged, and he said: “I’d better do without all these honors, so long as they don’t flog me.”

For example, in G. Conversini da Ravenna's "Account of Life" one can find many descriptions of the cruel method of teaching children. Giovanni studied at the Filippino da Luga school, to which his father sent him. The author recalls with a shudder the case of an eight-year-old boy who studied with him: “I am silent about how the teacher beat and kicked the kid. When one day he failed to recite the verse of the psalm, Filippino carved him so that blood flowed, and while the boy was screaming desperately, he hung him with his legs tied, naked to the water level in the well ... Although the feast of Blessed Martin was approaching, he [Filipino ] stubbornly did not want to cancel the punishment until the end of breakfast. As a result, the boy was taken out of the well half-dead from wounds and cold, "pale in the face of imminent death."

A certain resident of London, to whom the little son of a neighbor came into the workshop to play and took a piece of wool from a basket, hit him on the head with his fist so that the boy died two days later (at the same time, the court acquitted the woman, recognizing the murder as unintentional and happened as a result of a completely legitimate desire "discipline" a naughty child).

For example, in Guibert Nozhansky's monody, the author talks about his learning: “he [the teacher] showered me almost every day with a hail of slaps and kicks in order to force me to understand what he could not explain himself.” Noteworthy is the fact that Guibert Nozhansky realized the injustice and futility of such a teacher's behavior, although the author believes that there was a benefit from the classes.

“Advice from a father to his son” by the Czech writer, bachelor of the University of Prague Smil Flaschka (mid-14th century-1403), “Discourses on the management of the family” by the medieval Italian teacher Pandolfini, etc. This pious teacher of morality gives such advice to the fathers of families: “Son Li imashi, who did not reach the thread in his youth, but crushed his ribs; if you beat him with a rod, he will not die, but he will be healthy, whether the daughter of imashi - put your thunderstorm on her. This severe moralist forbids even laughing and playing with the child.

The whipping tools were various whips and whips, cats, shovels, sticks, iron and wooden rods, bundles of rods, special whips from a small chain (the so-called "disciplines"), special school inventions, such as, for example, a mallet with a pear-shaped extension at the end and a round hole so that blisters jump up. The comparative frequency of the use of different methods can be seen from the list of one German schoolteacher, who calculated that in total he gave 911,527 blows with a stick, 124,000 lashes, 136,715 slaps with his hand and 1,115,800 slaps.

1.3. Raising children in monasteries

In the monasteries of England, not only adult monks served, but 7-year-old children also became spiritual mentors. The monasteries of the Middle Ages were nothing like schools, as is customary now. None of the church "students" (they were called oblat children) returned home after the service. All remained to serve in the monastery until the end of their days. Such early spiritual enlightenment was due to the desire of adults to quickly redeem children from all kinds of sins.

And the earlier the child was given to the monastery, the better. Most of them never saw their parents again. Those who came to the monastery were dressed in monastic clothes and immediately forced to learn the rules. You can imagine how hard it was for children under 10 who had to get up at midnight and go to the chapel for a service 3 hours later. And there were several such services per day, they continued all year round, without a break. The execution of the daily routine was strictly controlled by senior monks, any offense was immediately punished. It was possible to punish by observing a strict fast or by lashes on a naked body. Adult monks who made similar mistakes were never punished like that.

Children entered the monastery regardless of the state of their parents. Rather, on the contrary, wealthy residents specially gave their children to the monastery, thereby showing respect to the Almighty. They sincerely believed that by giving the child to the monastery, he would save their souls from falling into hell with his prayers.

1.4. Education in knightly families

Raising boys

The upbringing of male children was from the very beginning aimed at acquiring chivalric skills and studying court manners, while the "sacred arts" were studied, as it were, by the way. Sons of noble houses at the age of seven often received a very serious religious education.

From the 7th year of life, boys learned to introduce themselves to girls, where it was not the father who took on the upbringing of his son, but the “educator”. The boy could be given to be raised by a knight or, finally, to the ducal palace with other peers of his age and class. Basically, the boys were trained in physical exercises, the art of hunting, shooting from a crossbow, participated in tournaments and learned the science of warfare.

In addition, boys from noble families learned court manners, learned to sing, play the harp, harp and violin. To study foreign languages, they were given the opportunity to travel to foreign countries. The noble side of knightly education was that boys and young men had to learn the rules of dealing with a lady.

At the age of 14, young men underwent not only the science of external decency, but serious training was also mandatory, as a “squire” in the practical service of a knight. The youth were now becoming fit for military service. After passing the probationary period, the young man in the circle of knights received a reward in a simple form, and after a battle or after a victory won on the battlefield, in a solemn atmosphere with the celebration of the whole court or in the church with an oath to protect the church, widows and orphans, not to start unjust enmity, to read women, was awarded golden spurs and blessed with a sword.

But in order to become a knight, considerable financial expenses were required, so the children of nobles were more likely to become a knight. In the Middle Ages, a teenager from a wealthy family could receive a generous reward, and becoming a knight, receive benefits in the form of a piece of land or a high status in society, which in the Middle Ages was perhaps the most important thing. Among the numerous castles in England, luxurious, well-fortified castles of knights and rich estates have always stood out as an indicator of their own greatness and status. Such buildings were perfect for training future knights. One of these castles, Bodiam, built by Sir Edward Delengridge, was the first military academy in history. It was possible to learn the art of chivalry from the age of 6-7. In the presence of a noble birth, the boy was sent to live in another castle to the lord, who was a fully trained knight. Any boy began his long journey to glory from the service of an ordinary page. A page is something like a servant who, in addition to everyday duties, learned the basics of chivalry in the evening. The future knight had to sweep the floor and clean the stable every day.

The most ungrateful role was that of a whipping boy, who had to serve at court and take beatings instead of the grandchildren and children of the masters. It was also a daunting task to work as a pisspa, who had to rush to the call with a chamber pot at parties and balls for adult gentlemen, in the absence of a toilet, to push the chamber pot under the crinoline to the ladies.

Young knights were taught to be respectful, among the knights there were special rules of conduct.

The children of aristocrats, surprisingly, were the most unfree of all.

Throughout the medieval period, land was the source of wealth and status. Kings and lords have always fought fiercely for the land. Often the victims of this struggle were children. If they were left orphans with inheritances, they often became a vulnerable card in the battlefield for land ownership. In 1444, Margaret Beaufort became one of the richest heiresses in the country. When her father died, Margaret's guardian quickly married her to his son, although both were not yet 8. Because of her untold wealth, the little girl turned out to be the center of political games - the King of England annulled her first marriage and married Margaret to his brother, to whom was 26, despite the fact that the girl was only 12. To get her wealth, the newly-made husband conceived the girl's first child after 2 months of marriage. A few months later, her husband died in a civil war, and 3 months later, a son was born to a 12-year-old girl who had been in 2 marriages and was widowed. The son who was destined to turn the whole history of England. He will become a powerful king who unifies England after the War of the Scarlet and White Roses. His name was Henry 7, who later founded the Tudor dynasty.

educating girls

Since the chivalrous, courtly, male world has considered a woman, she has become the pole around which court poetry has concentrated. Thus, women became the patroness and protector of literature.

Well-bred women and girls were considered those who could sing, carry on a conversation, play the harp or recite epic poems expressively. An educated young lady required skill in fine manual work, skill in reading and writing, singing, playing musical instruments, as well as knowledge of foreign languages.

In the Middle Ages, they were brought up in the spirit of asceticism, according to the mores of those times, the girl had to be modest, submissive to her father and husband, she was obliged to undernourish and constantly pray. In no case should she leave the house before marriage without the accompaniment of loved ones.

1.5. Education in peasant families

Compared to noble children, the daily life of rural children was significantly different. The mortality of peasant children in the country was very high. Most children died before they reached their first birthday. As a result, parents were not as emotionally connected to their child. They knew that in the near future they would have a new child who would take the place of the deceased. As a result, the child received less affection and love, with all the social and emotional consequences.

Little attention was paid to the education of children. Instead, they were left to their own devices, growing up in society, listening to parents and relatives as they sing and tell stories, watching adults drunk and dancing at festivals, learning early on the hard work of adults by watching and imitating them.

Rural children were considered by their parents, who often lived on the edge of poverty as unpaid laborers. Children, from the time they started walking, had to work in the field. Work in the field started early and was rather painstaking and boring, and most importantly, insanely difficult for a boy of 8-9 years old. If the children did not fulfill their assignments or their duties, they were expected to receive serious physical punishment. On average, boys reached marriageable age at 14 years old, and girls at 12, this period could differ depending on the region and the customs of the peoples inhabiting it. The upbringing of children could differ significantly depending on the position of the family.

1.6. Citizen education

The masters often took children from the age of 12 for training, and the relationship between them was regulated by a special agreement. Such a contract was made in 2 copies, one of them was a copy. Only the addition of 2 contracts could prove the authenticity of such an agreement. Terms of contracts - from 7 to 12 years, depending on the age of the boy. The contract described the strict rules of the boy's residence with the employer - it was forbidden to gamble and communicate with the opposite sex. In case of violation of the rules, the punishment was quite interesting - doubling the service life.

Young apprentices were a very valuable source of cheap labor in the urban environment. Many of them saved up to start their own business. However, due to their age, most of them spent money on entertainment and ended up with nothing. But the most persistent, not tempted by temptations, had a great future ahead of them. Joining the Guild of Merchants opened up new opportunities for young entrepreneurs to grow.

Thus, a special class of young artisans with their own business made a huge contribution to the development of the economy of England.

All of the above allows us to draw the following conclusions:

Medieval childhood was a short period, and the child early joined the world of adults, began to work or learn knightly pursuits.

As can be seen from all that has been said above, there was no such concept of “raising children”. The child was not the center of family life. His position in the family in many cases was marked by lack of rights, his life and death were completely controlled by his father.

Thus, we see that the principles and methods of raising children during this period were dictated by the difficult living conditions of the vast majority of the population. However, it can be seen that each of the ages is a static state. The emphasis in these classifications was not on the process of transition from one age to another, but on the characteristics of each of them, considered in isolation.

Chapter II. Entertainment for children of the Middle Ages

2.1. Children games

As a result of the study, we found several other memories. Here is what the 13th-century Franciscan monk, known as Bartholomew of England, wrote about contemporary children in his encyclopedia On the Properties of Things. “Children often have bad habits and think only about the present, neglecting the future. They love games and empty activities, not paying attention to what is beneficial and useful. They consider important things that do not matter, and unimportant things that are important. They weep and sob more from the loss of an apple than from the loss of an inheritance. They forget the favors shown to them. They love to talk to other children and avoid the company of old people. They keep no secrets, but repeat everything they see and hear. They are crying, laughing, constantly yelling, chatting and laughing. Washed, they get dirty again. When their mothers wash them and comb their hair, they kick, kick and punch, and resist with all their might. They think only of their bellies, always wanting to eat and drink. As soon as they get out of bed, they are already hungry for food.

In medieval manuscripts, images of children playing often flash. A striking confirmation of this fact is the painting by Brueghel "Playing Children" [Appendix 1], written more than 500 years ago. It depicts many children playing in the way a modern person imagines - someone is playing dice, girls are circling in colorful skirts, some seem to be playing a scene of a wedding.

The child's activities consisted of various games. Such as hide-and-seek, hide-and-seek, leapfrog, etc. and toys: balls, bones, grandmas, spinning tops, wooden horses, rag and leather balls, dolls with moving arms and legs, carved from wood, miniature dishes.

There is a lot of evidence that medieval people were not at all deprived of a sense of love and affection for their children, that they were taken care of and educated. From the 9th century, letters of the Frankish noble woman Duoda have been preserved, in which she expresses maternal care for her son living in a foreign land.

There are cases when mothers diligently took care of the survival of their frail babies, even resorting to magical means. The French inquisitor Etienne de Bourbon (mid-13th century) left evidence of the peasant cult of St. Ginefort, who turned out to be a greyhound dog. Peasant women from the area near Lyon brought their sick newborns to the grave of this "saint" for healing.

Summing up, we can say that the expression of parental feelings for children is difficult to detect in the scarcity of the type of sources in which feelings are usually embodied in general: memoirs, personal letters and biographies. But in the course of the study, it was revealed that images of playing children often flash in medieval manuscripts.

Thus, we see that during the Middle Ages, children were not deprived of the love of their parents, and, despite the presence of certain duties, children had the opportunity to play and have fun.

Chapter III. Questionnaire

In order to find out what my peers think about their childhood and whether they know about the life of children in the Middle Ages, we decided to conduct a sociological survey [Appendix 2] among the students of our gymnasium. The survey was conducted by the method of questioning. The survey involved middle-level students - grades 5-8.

Respondents were asked the following questions:

We got the following results:

90% believe that the age of the child corresponds to the period from 0 to 17 years;

6% period from 0 to 14 years

4% period from 0 to 12 years

74% consider their childhood happy

21% find it difficult to answer

5% consider their childhood unhappy

As a result, we found out that the vast majority of respondents called the age from birth to 17 years old as childhood, the vast majority consider their childhood happy, but they are not interested in the life of children in early historical periods.

After familiarizing the students with the materials of the research work, we conducted a second survey [Appendix 2].

As a result, we received the following data:

On the first question [Annex 3]:

80% still consider childhood from 0 to 17 years old

15% - from 0 to 14 years

5% -from 0 to 12 years

On the second question [Annex 4]:

91% consider their childhood happy

7% undecided

2% consider their childhood unhappy

On the third question [Annex 5]:

As a result of the repeated questioning, we found out that, having become acquainted with the materials of the research work, schoolchildren:

Having compared the childhood of modern children with the medieval one, they began to consider their childhood happier;

The overwhelming majority of schoolchildren, who were not previously interested in questions of the history of children, showed interest in the problem of medieval childhood that we raised.

Appendix 1

The painting "Children's Games" by Pieter Brueghel the Elder (a fragment of the painting)

Annex 2

What age do you think a person can be considered a child?

A) A person between the ages of 0 and 12

B) A person between the ages of 0 and 17

B) A person between the ages of 0 and 14

Do you consider your childhood happy?

B) I don't know

Are you interested in the life of children in early historical periods, for example, in the Middle Ages?

c) Never thought about it

Annex 3

What age do you think a person can be considered a child?

Appendix 4

Do you consider your childhood happy?

Annex 5

Are you interested in the life of children in early historical periods, for example, in the Middle Ages?

Conclusion

In conclusion of the work done, the following conclusions can be drawn:

1.Childhood was a short period; the children of the peasants began to work with their parents, and the children of the townspeople went to learn the craft. The sons of noble parents in adolescence were often sent to be raised in the house of their overlord, and the girls were married early.

2. The principles of raising children during this period of history were dictated by life itself and the church. Denying the need for the harmonious development of the child, church ministers propagated only the "fear of God."

3. However, medieval parents loved their children, in general, the same as the average modern parents. Society required a different upbringing than today, but this does not mean that parental love did not exist.

4. It can be confidently stated that their life was far from today's ideal. They had their own problems, games and responsibilities. To many, medieval life will seem somewhat cruel, but we can no longer change anything. Oh times, oh manners! . It is this expression that can characterize the attitude towards children in the Middle Ages.

5. Thanks to the study, modern children began to consider their childhood happier.

Consequently, the hypothesis of our study was confirmed: the life of children in the Middle Ages was much harder than today.

Children have always been and always will be. Their proper upbringing and care is the most important role of modern society. The Middle Ages helped many followers take a fresh look at childhood, understand it and accept it as the most important stage in human development.

Bibliographic link

Tkachev A.A. CHILDREN OF THE MIDDLE AGES // Start in science. - 2018. - No. 5-2. – S. 253-262;
URL: http://science-start.ru/ru/article/view?id=1089 (date of access: 04/03/2020).

According to medieval ideas, human life was divided into six periods: infancy, childhood, adolescence, youth, maturity and old age. The question arises: did Europe in the Middle Ages and early modern times know childhood as a special, different from others, period of a person's life? The reflections of scientists on this issue and their disputes, especially after the publication in 1960 of the book by F. Aries "The child and family life under the old order", gave rise several decades ago to a new interdisciplinary field of research - "childhood history". According to F. Aries, not only the modern concept of childhood, but also general interest in this period of life were alien to Western European culture until the New Age. The formation of the modern image of the child, he believed, refers to the 18th-18th centuries, when the children's and adult worlds receive distinct differences and the independent social and psychological value begins to be recognized for the first. However, the culmination of this process belongs to the era of romanticism, which created a real cult of the child. Before modern times, the French historian argued, the world was a "world of adults", where the child was considered just a small adult and where, as a rule, no one thought deeply about his age characteristics.

It should be noted that in subsequent years this position has repeatedly provoked well-reasoned objections. A lot of evidence has been found that both the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and Reformation were quite familiar with the stages of human life that correspond to modern concepts of childhood and adolescence.

The most ardent supporters of the idea of the "long Middle Ages" do not question the fact that during this period the attitude towards the child in Europe changes significantly. These changes, which first became noticeable at the end of the 14th century among the wealthy townspeople of Renaissance Italy, then, at the beginning of the 16th century, acquire a new impetus in Protestant countries, after which the process of change covers almost all of Western Europe. In the Christian West, the first realistic images of the child first appeared in painting and sculpture, and from the 16th century the first books for children began to be created. Society begins to discuss many "childish" issues that have never occupied it before. Among them - the expediency of feeding the baby with the milk of the nurse or another one that has a symbolic sound - about the possible dangers of swaddling the baby. At that time, they began to think and talk more about children and childhood.

However, it would hardly be correct to depict the nature of these changes as a simple shift in the attitude of society towards the child from indifferent to interested. The often declared indifference to the child in the Middle Ages is most likely a myth. But in the same way, it should be considered a myth that at this time total reverence reigns in relation to him.

In the XIV-XVII centuries, not just a few, but many dozens of memoirs were created. Childhood in the memory of the writers of the early modern period is a separate, lively and, undoubtedly, significant period of life. And medieval writers talk about children separately from adults, because they need special care. Medieval law, whether Roman, canonical or customary, also places children in a special category, endowed with personal and property rights, which require guardianship during infancy. The very concept of infancy implied vulnerability and the need for special protection.

It is difficult to understand exactly what place the child occupied in the family as a primary community.

“People of the 12th century were not afraid of life and observed the biblical commandment: “Be fruitful and multiply.” The average birth rate was about 35 per thousand annually. A large family was considered normal for all strata of society. However, royal couples set an example here: Louis VI and Alyx of Savoy, Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, Louis VII and Blanca of Castile, each produced eight children each. Contrary to the statements of historians for many years, the childbearing period for women in the 12th and 13th centuries was almost the same as for modern mothers. If he was considered short, it was only because he was often interrupted by death during childbirth.

The Middle Ages did not know the special education of young children. Aristocratic babies were given to nurses. “A nurse, wrote Bartholomew of England, takes the place of a mother and, like a mother, rejoices when the child rejoices, and suffers when he suffers. She picks him up when he falls, comforts him when he cries, kisses him when he is sick. She teaches him to speak by repeating words and "almost breaking his tongue". She chews meat for a toothless baby, whispers and sings to him, strokes him when he sleeps, bathes and anoints him. His classes consisted of various games: hide-and-seek, blind man's buff, leapfrog, etc., and toys: balls, bones, grandmas, spinning tops, wooden horses, rag and leather balls. Dolls with moving arms and legs, carved from wood, miniature tableware. The children of peasants and artisans, having left the cradle, crawled around the kitchen until they reached the age when they could be assigned to some business. Adolescence ended early: by the age of 12 for girls, by 14 for boys.

Boys could be educated in monasteries, and the monks did not require them to follow the rules prescribed by adults, and even set aside time for games.

In wealthy families, where the child was positioned as the heir, the successor of the clan (for boys) or a convenient political weapon, a means of uniting families (for girls), there was an idea of mutual obligations: parents give their time and money to help children enter into life, and children in return they undertake to be obedient and submissive to their parents.

However, the high infant mortality in the Middle Ages indicates a lack of parental affection for children. In any case, it is quite obvious that where high infant mortality is caused by the poverty of parents for children, their birth and their death are treated calmly. At least until the child became a worker in the family (about 7-8 years), then the death of the child was perceived as the loss of working hands. Indeed, infant mortality was very high. About a third of children did not live past the age of five, and at least 10% died within a month of birth. In this regard, children were baptized very early, most often the day after birth. A person from birth is a social being, he needs communication and love no less than shelter and food.

Frederick II even conducted social experiments on babies. “He wished to know from experience which of the languages or dialects were characteristic of children if they grew up without speaking to any of the people. And he ordered the maids and nurses to give milk to babies, to nurse them, to bathe and care for them, but not to caress them or talk to them; for he wanted to know. Will they speak Hebrew, the first language in existence, Greek, Latin or Arabic, or the language of their parents, those of whom they were born. But all his efforts were in vain, for not a single baby survived ... ".

As for marriages among children, marriages were concluded exclusively in the aristocratic environment, peasants and artisans did not need it. Nor did they assign adult roles to their children. B. Hanawalt made the observation that between the ages of four and eight, peasant children were mainly occupied with children's games, and usually only after 8 years they began to be entrusted with various work, most often domestic work: the boys watched the sheep or geese, grazed or watered the bulls and horses, picked up spikelets after the harvest; girls gathered wild fruits, brought water, helped cook. As young men, the boys joined their fathers in the field.

Some young men from all classes, nobility, artisans, peasants, left home to get an education, acquire labor skills or become servants. The sons and daughters of the nobility were sent to other aristocratic estates, often relatives, so that the sons would master the skills of knights, and the girls would learn the rules of courtship. When 20-year-old William Marshal was leaving for Normandy to become a squire, he, according to his biographer, wept, parting with his mother, brothers and sisters, like a modern youth leaving for a boarding school.

The city boy could live and eat in the house of the master, for whom he served as an apprentice, and his parents paid for his maintenance. Most guilds forbade boys from becoming apprentices with their own fathers, so learning the trade meant that the boy would leave his parental home early. Middle-class boys who went to school were usually apprenticed as soon as they became literate: education was a luxury, while knowledge of a trade or craft provided a living. In 1248 a lawyer from Marseille sent his son as an apprentice to a money changer for two years; he paid a considerable amount of money and grain for "bread and wine and meat" and other necessary things for Guillaume, and also promised the owner compensation if the young man caused him any damage. The relationship between the master and the student, according to S. Trapp, was "semi-parental", and special attention was paid to fostering respect for the authority of the master. Apprentices were subject to corporal punishment, with punishments stipulated in the agreement "as if it were the master's duty and not his right". The student had to learn to subdue his character and control himself in front of his elders. If he felt that he was being mistreated, he could contact the master's guild. Illegitimate children were often given the same attention as legitimate children, including education through apprenticeships; sometimes they could inherit property. A 14th-century Ghent tanner named Giselbrecht de Scutit had a long-term relationship with a woman who gave him six children. His wife did not bear children, and on his deathbed, Giselbrecht left a significant inheritance to all six and apprenticed his eldest son to a tanner so that he could follow his father in his profession: the tanners' guild did not discriminate against illegitimate children. it was said above, was very high. A woman from 15 to 40 years old gave birth 12-15 times with an interval of 1.5-2 years. The technique of contraception and abortion were anathematized by the Church and partly forgotten. Village midwives defame themselves as witches.

Although people in the Middle Ages achieved property legal capacity relatively late, marriage could be concluded quite early: for boys - at 14-15 years old, for girls - at 13-14 years old. In some cases, the Catholic Church consecrated even the marriages of twelve-year-olds. Parents could betroth children immediately after birth. It was impossible to break such an engagement. But when the children turned 14, they ate the right to terminate the engagement on their own, but only if the girl remained pure. Relatives up to the 6th generation, godchildren, half-brothers and sisters were excluded from the number of marriage partners. Therefore, a peasant often had to look for a spouse for his son quite far from his place of permanent residence.

According to the famous historian Jacques Le Goff, a pragmatic society hardly noticed the child, having no time to be touched or admire him: “The child often did not have an educator so familiar to traditional societies. Life expectancy was too short in the Middle Ages. As soon as he got out of the care of women who did not take his childish essence seriously, the child was thrown into the exhausting rural labor or into military training. This is also confirmed by the pictures in which a very young hero is already drawn as a young man - precocity was a common occurrence.

Another reason for the indifference to the child was general illiteracy: in the oral-speaking, not knowing either writing or reading medieval world, there was no reason to separate the spheres of adult and child life. The child was not potty trained, the sexual life of adults was not hidden from him, there were no restrictions and phrases like “it’s too early for you to know.” Work was also not distinguished by age.

The only boundary separating the "little adult" from the average adult is the age of seven years. It was believed that then a person finally masters all the secrets of speech, and therefore becomes a fully developed being. The Church also advocated for a seven-year boundary, arguing that every seven-year-old is able to clearly distinguish good from evil. In practice, as soon as the baby could do without the constant care of the mother or nurse, he belonged to the world of adult concerns and adult interests.

At this time, there was a high infant mortality rate. In the era of undeveloped medicine, when the main thing for children was to die, in large families, only a few survived to the age of 20. Therefore, adults lacked a psychological complex of empathy for children "disappearing before their eyes." It was believed that until the child grows up and thus proves his viability, he simply should not arouse special attention and interest from parents. The death of a child during this period of mourning did not provide.

Keywords

CRUELTY / CHILDREN / THE MIDDLE AGES

annotation scientific article on sociological sciences, author of scientific work - Gulik Zoya Nikolaevna

The cruel attitude towards children in the Middle Ages in Western Europe and Russia is considered. During this period, a certain stereotype of attitude towards the child developed, which can be defined as “neglect”, despotic orders reigned in the family, cruel methods of education were considered the norm. The author made an attempt to reconstruct the changes in the behavioral code of medieval people in relation to cruelty

The text of the scientific work on the topic "Cruelty towards children in the Middle Ages"

Z.N. Gulik

CRULITY TO CHILDREN DURING THE MIDDLE AGES

The work was supported by the NGO "Charity Foundation for Cultural Initiatives

(Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation)"

Keywords: cruelty; children; Middle Ages.

Childhood is a traditional and one of the most important subjects of socio-anthropological study of cultures of the past and present. It is a problem, the solution of which lies in the field of interdisciplinary research. The modern attitude towards children and offspring on the part of adults is declared as an attitude permeated with love and disinterestedness. Precedents that contradict this cause bewilderment, disapproval and condemnation of the society. In modern society, the ideas of detocentrism and individualism, the value and uniqueness of each child's soul, dominate. But has it always been like this? Have the concepts of "child" and "childhood" always had the meaning that we put into them today? As evidenced by the studies of anthropologists and archaeologists, there are no biological differences between primitive man and modern people. Differences in the life of ancient and modern people are observed at the social level.

Childhood is a period of a person's life, lasting from birth to the onset of active puberty, the formation of a worldview and the emergence of opportunities to perform socially necessary activities subject to self-control and responsibility. For historians, it is obvious that the phenomenon of childhood in different cultures had different historical and psychological content. This article attempts to examine the attitude towards children in Western Europe and to identify the reasons for the historical originality of the attitude of adults towards their children, which we will try to identify in the course of comparing childhood in Western Europe and in Russia.

Consider the concept of "cruelty". Firstly, it is used in describing and defining such actions and deeds that are considered negative from the point of view of a modern person, i.e. rude, inhumane, unnatural. In everyday life, they are associated with primitive religious cults, the manifestation of unbridled passions, states of "eclipse of reason", with violent lawless actions of the authorities or people, with the violation of justice. Secondly, the concept of "cruelty" acts as an ethical and social characteristic in a situation where some are accused, others are justified, and others are offended.

In the era of barbarism and chivalry, cruelty was organically inherent in members of society. For a Zulu, to scalp an enemy and eat his head is the highest virtue. Echoes of archaic cruelty can be found in Western European medieval literature.

The Nibelungenlied describes an archaic ritual when the victor drinks the enemy’s blood: “Having understood that reasonable advice was given to their friend, / The Burgundians began to drink the blood of the dead from wounds, / And this added so much strength to the fighters, / That they took away then they are friends with many ladies. However, Fraser in the now classic "Golden Bough" gives many similar examples. In this paper, we will proceed from the fact that cruelty is behavior that goes beyond the use of force on a scale that calls into question the viability of a social system.

In order to understand the behavior of adults in relation to a child in the Middle Ages, let's first try to understand the views of a medieval person on childhood. The Middle Ages inherited very contradictory attitudes towards childhood. As D. Herkley writes in his work “Medieval Children”, all the peoples that were part of the Roman Empire, excluding the Jews, allowed infanticide in cases of the birth of sick or excess children. A father in a Roman family had the right to refuse the newborn the act of zizzerio, accepting him into the family, and thereby dooming him to death. However, the author notes that the ancients took care of the upbringing of children, which was very severe.

The attitudes of the barbarians towards childhood, it would seem, were different. The Germans, according to Tacitus, do not kill children; they like to have a lot of them, but do not pay attention to their upbringing, and only on the threshold of manhood did the boy acquire value for the society of warriors. The tariffs of the wergelds in the barbarian "truths" indicate that the life of an adult, especially a man, was valued incomparably higher than the life of a child or an old man. In Scandinavia, the custom was widely known, when anyone who wished could do whatever he wanted with a child taken out by a bond (owner) from the house. This is the fate of children "doomed to the grave." The great poverty of the Scandinavian world gave rise to a tradition that the authors do not mention in relation to the Germans.

In the Middle Ages, children were treated differently than in modern times, which, as we read in the article “The Child in the Early Middle Ages” by Pierre Richet, was characterized by a general dislike for them (although this statement seems to the author of this article debatable). In support of this thesis, P. Richet cites evidence that many men and women refused to have children, seeing them as only a burden. In this regard, the author draws attention to the numerous indications of early medieval monuments about the use of anti-

rudimentary remedies (for example, "bad drinking" that prevented pregnancy), about abortions, murders and tossing newborns.

During the Middle Ages, there was a certain stereotype of attitude towards the child. The peculiarity of the behavioral model of adults of that time was not that people were deprived of parental feelings, but in their specificity: ardent love for children was combined with fatalism, humility before fate, passivity in overcoming the misfortune that threatened the child. This was largely due to the underdevelopment of the rational and intellectual tools of the consciousness of a person of the Middle Ages, with the narrowness of the spiritual world, which led to a misunderstanding of the specifics of children's behavior, in particular the physical and psychological characteristics of childhood and adolescence. Of certain importance was also the circumstance that, with frequent births and no less frequent child deaths, parents did not always have time to become attached to the newborn, to feel it as an extension of their own "I". Thus, Truver Mareschal writes that “he has the strength to “bake” more sons if any of them fall victim to treachery”, i.e. the death of a child would not have been a great sorrow in the author's life.

The description of childhood was of little interest to Russian chroniclers. Words denoting the rising generation are found in The Tale of Bygone Years ten times less often than nouns referring to adult men. The terms used by adults in relation to children reveal the style of consciousness. "Otrok" literally meant "non-speaking", i.e. "not having the right to speak, the right to vote in the life of the clan or tribe."

The “neglect” of children in medieval Russia is evidenced by the instructions of the clergy (“cry for a short time for dead children”), as well as laws that cite the facts of the sale of children in the “dress” (in full indefinite use) to visiting guests. Another example is the sale of children, which is described in “The Prayer of Danil Zatochnik”: when asked about the reason for such an act, the father answered: “If they were born to their mother, then when they grow up, they will sell me myself.”

One of the first to note the historical and psychological nature of such neglect of children was Lloyd Demos, who in his work Psychohistory gives a periodization of the types of relationships between parents and children in history. It should be noted that his theory does not work outside a broad socio-cultural context that takes into account the specifics of historical and economic development, the geographical factor, historically developed value orientations of culture. Based on this, this periodization can hardly be applied with equal success to both Western Europe and Russia. The possibilities of historical and cultural editing of Demoz's tools are provided by the technology of analysis of the unconscious developed within the framework of the Tomsk methodological and historiographical school.

The historical and cultural material accumulated by science allows us to say that the socio-psychological structure of the personality of the Middle Ages was authoritarian in nature with pronounced

neurotic traits, which is transparently revealed by the picture of the then educational practices. Beatings, infliction of pain are the main elements of cruel, by the standards of our understanding, upbringing practices. For example, in G. Conversini da Ravenna's "Account of Life" one can find many descriptions of the cruel method of teaching children. Giovanni studied at the Filippino da Luga school, to which his father sent him. The author recalls with a shudder the case of an eight-year-old boy who studied with him: “I am silent about how the teacher beat and kicked the kid. When one day he failed to recite the verse of a psalm, Filippino carved him so that blood flowed, and while the boy was screaming desperately, he hung him with his legs tied, naked to the water level in the well ... Although the feast of Blessed Martin was approaching, he [Filipino] stubbornly refused to cancel the punishment until the end of breakfast.” As a result, the boy was taken out of the well half-dead from wounds and cold, "pale in the face of imminent death." And in Domostroy they recommended doing this: “. do not weaken, beating the baby: if God beat him with a rod, he will not die, but he will be healthy. Loving your son, increase his wounds. .

The despotic order that reigned in the family could not but affect the position of the children. The mother of Theodosius of the Caves, as the author of the Life repeatedly emphasized, it was by violent methods that she tried to influence her son. She beat him (even with her feet) until she literally collapsed from fatigue, shackled him, and so on. The psychology of "Domostroy" is firmly rooted in the everyday life of the broad masses and is reflected in a large number of Russian sayings and proverbs: "Whoever does not hear the tata, listen to the kat (that is, the whip)": "Love the dytynu, like a soul, but shake like a pear" : "Parental beatings give health", etc. .

Parental severity was not indifference or neglect, as R. Fossier believes, it had a historical and psychological character, rationalized in religious terms. If the child is guilty, he must be punished, often severely: if he cries, then an evil spirit has moved into him - the child will be beaten. Such severity was by no means a relic of the paternal omnipotence of ancient times, but a form of service to the Lord.

A father in a medieval family had broad rights, for example, the right to sell and pawn children. The historical monuments of medieval German legislation assert the right of fathers to sell children in extreme cases, during a famine, with only some restrictions in favor of those sold. The Swabian Mirror says that a father in time of need can rightfully sell his children, but not to the house of public women and not for murder. In the Saxon cities, the law gave the father the right to sell and pawn children during a famine, but in such a way that there was no danger to their lives and oppression of religious beliefs.

Slavic monuments also testify that during the famine of 1230 and 1231. parents sold their children into slavery: "and the fathers give their children a shit, from bread, a guest." Other monuments of ancient Russian law testify that the father (parents)

freely disposed of the freedom of his children, not only during the famine. According to the Code, parents could send their children to work, for school years, and according to the Code of Law of Ivan IV - to servitude.

So, the period of childhood in a medieval person is unlikely to evoke pleasant memories. The fact that sometimes the child was taken away from the family early and brought up by rather harsh methods could not but affect his psyche. During childhood, the child in most cases did not develop a sense of basic trust, which is a fundamental prerequisite for mental stability. This is one of the central ideas of E. Erickson's concept of identity. Deprivation of maternal care, excommunication from close figures, as well as deprivation of parental love, cannot but affect the “radical decrease in the feeling of basic trust” and not affect the nature of relations with the world of an already adult person.

The threshold of trusting intimacy of relations between loved ones in the family in that era was much lower than today. This formed the psychological basis for the reproduction of the very structure of the authoritarian nature of the Middle Ages, where relations were built on duty, the unconditional authority of the eldest in the clan, family. A parallel to such a code of behavior of a child-parent was quite reasonably shown by P. Kinyar on ancient material, which testifies to his rootedness in ancient societies. Despite the similarity of these practices in ancient societies, their subsequent evolution under different conditions of historical existence, it seems, determined the differences at subsequent stages of historical growth.

It is noteworthy that the picture of attitudes towards children in Western Europe was different. If in the early stages in some countries (for example, Scandinavia) there were children “doomed to the grave”, and examples of neglect were common

adults in relation to children, then later we see the sprouts of intimacy in different sections. For example, in Guibert Nozhansky's monody, the author talks about his studies: "... he [the teacher] showered me almost every day with a hail of slaps and kicks in order to force me to understand what he could not explain himself." Noteworthy is the fact that Guibert Nozhansky realized the injustice and futility of such a teacher's behavior, although the author believes that there was a benefit from the classes. And if we further draw the reference line of the macrohistorical picture of the phenomenon of childhood in Western Europe, then indirect signs indicating a change in the emotional atmosphere in the family can be considered an abundance of children's toys found during archaeological excavations, used from the 11th-111th centuries. special baby cradles. Montaigne, in an essay on children, writes that his father was so kind that he hired a musician who woke him up every morning with the sound of music to delight the tender children's ears.

This is how new practices of behavior towards a child appear in Europe (and in Russia we do not observe such changes). How can one explain this special dynamism of changing attitudes towards childhood, as well as the very authoritarian structure of personality consciousness on Western European soil? What was the reason for the more archaic attitude towards the child in medieval Russia? It can be assumed that the earlier transformation of the authoritarian structure of consciousness is associated with the more dynamic development of Western Europe, which received an “ancient inoculation”. The rather rapid growth of commodity-money relations contributed to the flourishing of cities and the strengthening of the burghers. There has been an increase in the individual self-awareness of a person, the emotional atmosphere in the family and the behavior of adults in relation to the child have changed. Consequently, there was a gradual elimination of cruel attitude towards children.

LITERATURE

1. Unfortunate A. A. Childhood: history and modernity. SPb. : Nestor-History, 2007.

2. Uvarova T.B., Eman I.E. Cruelty. The politics of cruelty in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Abstract review) // Culture and society in

Middle Ages - Early New Time. Methodology and methodology of modern historical-anthropological and sociocultural research. M., 1998.

3. Song of the Nibelungs. L.: Nauka, 1972.

4. Herkley D. Medieval children // Culture and society in the Middle Ages: methodology and methods of foreign research: abstract

collection. M., 1982.

5. Bessmertny Yu.L. The rhetoric of chivalrous sorrow according to the Anglo-French literature of the 21st-13th centuries. // Man and his relatives in the West and

East of Europe (before the beginning of the New Age) / under the general. ed. Yu. Bessmertny, O.G. Excel. M., 2000.

6. Old Russian stories. Perm: Book. publishing house, 1991.

7. Mogilnitsky B.G. History of historical thought of the XX century: a course of lectures. Issue. 3: Historiographical revolution. Tomsk: Publishing House Vol. un-

8. Nikolaeva I.Yu. Multidisciplinary synthesis and verification in history. Tomsk: Publishing House Vol. un-ta, 2010.

9. Memory of childhood. Western European memories of childhood from late antiquity to early modern times (III-XVI centuries). M. : Publishing house

10. Danilevsky IN. Ancient Russia through the eyes of contemporaries and descendants (1X-11 centuries). M. : Aspect-Press, 1998.

11. Kuznetsov Ya.O. Parents and children according to folk proverbs and sayings. M., 1911.

12. Fossier. People of the Middle Ages / trans. from fr. A.Yu. Karachinsky, M.Yu. Nekrasova, I.A. Egypti. SPb. : Eurasia, 2010.

13. Shpilevsky S. Family authorities among the ancient Slavs and Germans. Kazan, 1869.

14. Erickson E. Identity: youth and crisis. M., 1996.

15. Bessmertny Yu.L. Life and Death in the Middle Ages. Essays on the demographic history of France. M. : Nauka, 1991.

16. Montaigne M. Experiments. Selected chapters. Moscow: Pravda, 1991.

Frame from the TV series "Game of Thrones" Photo: imdb.com

The series "Game of Thrones" is one of the most successful on television, and bastards are its key characters. About the position of bastards in medieval society, the rights of illegitimate children to inheritance and bastards who became kings - in the PostNauka material.

Term bastardus- a medieval invention, appears from the 11th century in predominantly French sources and, according to the most common explanation, comes from the Latin word bastum(“saddle”), and denotes, respectively, a person conceived “in the saddle”, that is, on the go and (or) by some kind of traveler, and not married to a lawful husband.

Also of medieval, even later origin, the concept illegitimus("illegal"), appearing in the sources of the XIII century. But before that, other terms were in use, which came from Hebrew, Greek and classical Latin and denoted various categories of illegitimate, although these differences were defined differently by different authors. So, mamzer denoted the child of a prostitute, notus- fruit of adultery spurius- born a mistress, and naturalis- concubine, constant and only cohabitant, close to his wife. According to other interpretations, notus and spurius- products of misalliance, only the notus has a noble father, and the spurius has a noble mother (as Isidore of Seville believed). naturalis the same is the child of two unmarried people who theoretically can marry; such children may inherit if the father has no legitimate children.

Bastards and law

Illegitimate birth was not a taboo topic, it was discussed in legislation - take, for example, the Statute of Merton of 1235 or the English Poor Laws of 1536. The task of the legislators was to regulate inheritance rights as clearly as possible, preventing litigation and conflicts, or, as in the case of the Poor Laws, to remove the burden of supporting a single mother from the community, placing it on the secret father, if one could be identified. Somewhat later, moral considerations also sounded: why should a person suffer for the sins of others (his parents)? He suffered not only because he was deprived of his inheritance, but also because of various other restrictions. For example, under imperial law, a bastard could not hold public office and could not practice medicine.

The position of the bastards varied over time and space, with diversity touching on several key issues. Could the father legitimize the child after the fact by marriage to his mother, or by officially recognizing him as his child, or in some other way? Could the highest mercy save from the stigma of a bastard? In what exceptional cases could a bastard claim an inheritance? The development of these themes correlated with larger changes in medieval family and property law, primarily with the tightening of the framework of marriage, including the prohibition of incest and bigamy, produced by the Gregorian reform of the 11th century, and with the transition to primogeniture by birthright.

As a result, although some scholars trace the discrimination of bastards in the 7th-8th centuries, most often the 12th century is called a turning point in relation to the illegitimate: the opportunities for them were reduced (unlike previous centuries, the bastards of aristocrats could no longer be recognized as heirs, become princes of the church or - in England - peers), but at the same time their status and available rights were legally fixed, and in this sense, bastards were legalized. The choice of this milestone is consistent with Robert Moore's influential concept of the formation in the 12th century of a "persecuting society" - the beginning of European intolerance and the exclusion and persecution of various minorities.

King Arthur. Image from the tapestry of Christian heroes. Photo: wikipedia.org

Then this theme, becoming very burning, is reflected in the literature on the venacular, starting with the French epic poem "Raoul de Cambrai"; in other texts, the most beloved and respected medieval heroes turn out to be bastards: King Arthur and Charlemagne, Charlemagne.

The position of the bastards after the 12th century

But in subsequent centuries there were differences and fluctuations. So, in some cities in the XIV-XV centuries, illegitimate - both local and newcomers - could become full-fledged residents, but somewhere they could not; however, some other categories could not, for example, unmarried people. As a rule, the admission of bastards and the liberalization of immigration policy in general were caused by demographic crises after epidemics.

It is important to keep in mind that, whatever the legislation, especially in the absence of clear laws on bastards in the early Middle Ages, parents could act as they saw fit. For example, bastards could not be heirs to the main, real estate, but could live from it; they could be endowed with generous gifts from movable property, and daughters with an extended dowry, or they could be assigned a boarding house from the funds that go to the legitimate heir, and respectable marriage parties could be provided for them, so that they would not fall out of their social stratum at all.

Actually, this stratum - coupled with the intentions of specific parents and special circumstances (for example, the absence of legitimate children, often leading to the legitimization of bastards and even giving them to be raised by a legitimate wife) - predetermined the position of a child born out of wedlock. The lower the social ladder, the less enviable were his prospects: poor women simply abandoned such children shortly after their birth. For foundlings, shelters were established in many cities: the hospital of St. Catherine in London or the Holy Spirit in Rome (Pope Innocent III founded it so that women would not throw their children into the Tiber River anymore), the famous Ospedale degli Innocenti("Shelter of the Innocent" in Florence): of the first hundred foundlings who got into this shelter, 99 were bastards, born mainly to servant mothers and patrician fathers.

Bastards in Jewish communities

If we imagine the medieval European world as multicultural, and not exclusively Roman-Christian, and do not forget about the diasporas, we can look at the attitude towards illegitimate children in Jewish communities for comparison. It is believed that the Sephardim - Spanish Jews - were distinguished by special libertinage. Under the influence of the Muslim practice surrounding them, they had, if not second wives, then concubines, who often turned out to be Saracen maids, that is, girls from a different ethno-confessional community and a lower social status. If such concubinage brought offspring, this caused particular indignation among the rabbis, who stood up for the offended feelings and the shaken position of legal wives.

Men solved the problem in different ways: a case is known when a Jew killed two of several children born to him by a Saracen kept woman (no person - no problem), but more often, having received news of the pregnancy, the concubine was converted to Judaism, and then the born child was considered a Jew, but did not represent serious competition to the legitimate heirs of his father. However, these children, although born out of wedlock, were not actually illegitimate, mamzers, according to Jewish law. Mamzer is a child born by a married woman not from her husband. The status of mamzers is unenviable, they can only marry people like themselves and are subject to other discrimination. The fact that this is a kind of second-class social category is clearly seen, for example, in this anecdote from the Babylonian Talmud:

Rav Zeira said in Makhuz: "A proselyte is allowed to marry an illegitimate one." All the listeners showered him with their etrogs. Rava said: “Who says such a thing in a place where there are many proselytes?” Rava said in Makhuz: "A proselyte is allowed to marry the daughter of a kohen." They loaded him with silks.

Considering the seriousness of the consequences, usually, if the husband was ready to recognize the child as his own, they tried not to reveal the secret of his origin, sometimes despite the evidence: for example, they announced that the pregnancy had lasted twelve months and the like.

Bastards in noble families

The topic of illegitimacy was relevant primarily for the upper strata of society, because it was not so much about the sinfulness of extramarital sex, but about the inheritance of status and estate. Accordingly, the bastard laws were of interest to people who had wealth and power, and these same people influenced their adoption. It is noteworthy that the registration of the status of a bastard in the 12th century followed not only the definition of the boundaries of legal marriage in canon law, but also the formation of the nobility, often engaged in disputes over inheritance and in need of appropriate legislation.

William I the Conqueror, illegitimate son of the Norman Duke Robert II the Magnificent. Photo: wikipedia.org

The larger the nobility, the higher it stands on the ladder of the lord-vassal hierarchy, the more likely it is that the plot with the bastards will attract the attention of the lord or the church, will be reflected in the sources and reach our days. For example, in the 12th century, the Count of Roussillon was condemned by two popes for rejecting his lawful wife and mother of his lawful son and reunited with a long-term concubine, the mother of other children, and preventively forbade him to bequeath the county to illegitimate offspring. However, the count, apparently, did not even think of acting around his legitimate son, and he, in turn, without leaving legitimate heirs, also did not consider bastards as such, but bequeathed the county to his overlord, the Count of Barcelona.

Another striking example, dating from the same transitional period of the introduction of the boundaries of legal marriage and the beginning of the exclusion of bastards, includes the participation of an interested "well-wisher". The nephew of the English lord William Sackville begins a lawsuit, planning to receive an uncle's inheritance, bypassing his cousin and his daughter, insisting that she is illegitimate, since her uncle entered into a marriage with her mother without terminating his first marriage, and therefore he was subsequently declared invalid and annulled by the papal legate. The daughter's lawyer inventively defended her interests, pointing out, for example, that she was innocent and should not be responsible for the sins of her father, and also that if the dissolution of a marriage retroactively makes the children born in it bastards, then the French princesses turn out to be illegitimate. - daughters of Eleanor of Aquitaine and Louis VII, who terminated their marriage.

Royal bastards

There could be more powerful interests to deprive someone of their inheritance. So, the English king Henry II took away the title and possessions from descendants - equally from legitimate daughters and an illegitimate son, the Earl of Cornwall, on the basis that the earl himself was the bastard of King Henry I. If you look at the genealogical trees of European dynasties, offspring with suspected illegitimacy and marriages suspected of being illegitimate will be everywhere and in fair numbers. At the same time, it is necessary - but far from always possible - to distinguish between reality and a tool in a political game: there were undoubted bastards who did not prevent them from taking the throne, and there were legitimate heirs who lost their chances for power, who were branded bastards by a hostile court group.

The bastard was the grandfather of Charlemagne, Karl Martell. Bastard was William the Conqueror, who replaced this nickname with his original nickname - Bastard. It is noteworthy that if he was able to become king, then his illegitimate grandson Richard of Gloucester in the XII century could no longer. Bastards - not reigning, but titled - were among Philip II of France, Henry I of England and various kings of Castile and Aragon. Not to mention the numerous incestuous royal marriages in which children were born who were not unnecessarily declared bastards.

Conversely, as needed, the rebellious nobility resorted to such a strategy as supporting the royal bastards against the legitimate heirs. Depending on the alignment of forces in the feudal coalitions, such strife could end in the victory of the bastard, as happened in the war of the Castilian king Pedro the Cruel with his illegitimate half-brother, who became King Enrique II after the death of Pedro. And a century later, part of the Castilian nobility considered it beneficial for themselves to recognize the illegitimate daughter of another Enrique - Enrique IV - Juan and support his sister Isabella, the future Isabella the Catholic, in the struggle for the throne.

Coronation portrait of Elizabeth I Tudor. Photo: wikipedia.org

Another great queen of the late Middle Ages, Elizabeth Tudor, being the daughter of a king and queen, was called illegitimate more than once, and for various reasons. After the execution of her mother and the conclusion of a new marriage by her father, Elizabeth was declared a bastard, since her mother was no longer queen, and was deprived of the title of Princess of Wales. And subsequently, the Catholic party repeatedly argued about the queen's illegitimacy, not recognizing the legitimacy of her father's divorce from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, and marriage to the maid of honor.

Bastards in culture

As, of course, the phenomenon itself, as well as the medieval discourse about bastards with its duality - a combination of political pragmatism and Christian moralizing - survived into modern times. Thus, the Duke of Saint-Simon, in his memoirs, was indignant that Louis XIV arranged the marriages of his illegitimate children with princes of the blood, thereby staining the holy of holies of the kingdom - the royal family. Bastards, from the point of view of Saint-Simon, are unclean not only because other than blue blood flows in their veins, but also because they bear the stigma of the sin of their parents.

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