| A Tender Age: Cultural Anxieties Over the Child in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries Contributor(s): Maclehose, William (Author) |
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ISBN: 0231142560 ISBN-13: 9780231142564 Publisher: Columbia University Press OUR PRICE: $79.20 Product Type: Hardcover Published: January 2009 Annotation: In the Early thirteenth century, the burial of children evolved from a familial tragedy to an event of dramatic consequence. The death of a child took on a symbolic power, with great concern expressed over the fate of the body. William F. Maclehose identifies the heightening of social anxiety over children, an anxiety focused on images of children's vulnerability and susceptibility to external threats. Employing a wide range of sources, including historical chronicles, medical writings, Marian legends, hagiography, and popular theological texts, he chooses four important discussions of childhood that directly link fragility with other sources of cultural anxiety: medical writers who began to articulate an increasingly paradoxical view of women's bodily fluids; doctrinal debates on the fate of children who died before baptism; accusations against Jews; and the Children's Crusade of 1212. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | Europe - Medieval - Social Science | Children's Studies |
| Dewey: 305.230 |
| LCCN: 2008038964 |
| Series: Gutenberg-e |
| Physical Information: 0.75" H x 6" W x 9" (1.20 lbs) 264 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - Medieval (500-1453) |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Beginning in the early thirteenth century, the burial of a child became an event of dramatic consequence. Child death took on a symbolic power, with great concern expressed over the fate of the body. William F. MacLehose follows the evolution of this social anxiety during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, an anxiety focused on images of children's vulnerability and susceptibility to external threats. Employing a wide range of sources, including historical chronicles, medical writings, Marian legends, hagiography, and popular theological texts, MacLehose advances four important discussions of childhood that directly link fragility with other sources of cultural anxiety: medical writers who began to articulate an increasingly paradoxical view of women's bodily fluids--milk and menstrual blood--as simultaneously essential and potentially fatal to the survival of the fetus and the newborn; doctrinal debates on the fate of children who died before baptism; accusations against Jews, who were charged with the ritual murder of Christian children; and the so-called Children's Crusade of 1212, which was justified on the basis that corruption was an inevitable part of a child's growth. |