2. The Concept of the Child in the Middle Ages: The Ariès Thesis

Abstract

2. The Concept of the Child in the Middle AgesThe Ariès Thesis Allen M. Barstow (bio) It is doubtful whether any literature was written solely for children in the Middle Ages, but it is quite plausible to say that all vernacular fiction was directed toward an audience that contained children. The adult lifespan was half what it is today, a fact which, combined with the inclusion of children in the audience, leads us to conclude that the average age of such an audience must have been considerably lower than it is in the case of modern adult literature. Further study of this important problem is hindered by unanswered questions of historical semantics. Our concept of the terms child and childhood is inevitably colored by our cultural formation, to such an extent that we dare not with impunity attribute our modern notions of these terms to the medieval world. Until recently, social historians have not given much scholarly attention to the semantic questions, but in 1960 the French demographer Philippe Ariès set forth some clear, albeit controversial, theories concerning the history of the concepts of "child" and "family." L'Enfant et la vie familiale sous l'Ancien Regime (Paris: Pion, 1960) was rendered [End Page 41] into English as Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life (New York: Knopf, 1962; Vintage Giant Paperback, 1967). Filling a void with authoritative statements based on extensive research, Ariès' work has become required reading in this country for historians of education and child psychology as well as for scholars of children's literature, but medievalists have not yet declared themselves on his thesis of medieval social development. Ariès traces the evolution of the child and the family from the late Middle Ages to the revolution, principally in France, but with frequent references to England and other countries of western Europe. Our interest is with his conclusions concerning the medieval period, which is his point of departure for explaining later developments. It behooves us to begin with an attempt to define what is meant by child. In the Middle Ages, as in more recent times, the concept is not closely limited in terms of age, for the most frequently used designations for children (in whatever language) may be applied to anyone from birth to majority. This does not agree with the classical tradition, in which man's life was frequently divided into septennates: infancy, childhood, adolescence, and youth (which was the middle age and therefore the prime of life), followed by senescence, old age, and senility. Ariès uses the lack of linguistic precision in the Middle Ages to support his argument that there was at that time no distinction between different levels of childhood. Lack of arithmetical precision is, of course, a salient trait of the medieval mind, but it can be demonstrated that society did indeed recognize the traditional ages of non-adults. Ariès himself offers abundant proof that infancy was a distinct concept in medieval society, for all the evidence indicates that until the age of seven the infant was reared by his mother or by a mother-substitute. He was then sent into the world of men. Ariès assumes that there was no form of instruction during infancy, an age during which the offspring did not count and was simply ignored by adults. Ariès notes the paucity of children in the iconography of the tenth through thirteenth centuries. In the few cases in which infants are depicted, they are almost invariably portrayed as little men—that is, with the features, the expression, and even the musculature of full-grown men. In this early period of iconography, says Ariès, there is no trace of the sentimentally inspired aesthetic which later developed around infancy. The latter is first seen in the thirteenth century in baby-like renditions of the Christ child and soon spread to depictions of angels and the soul. Not until the fifteenth century, however, does Ariès detect the presence of lay children in iconography. [End Page 42] He concludes that in the early Middle Ages, by which he means the twelfth through the fourteenth centuries, there was a lack...