Master-servant childhood : a history of the idea of childhood in medieval English culture / Patrick Joseph Ryan, King's University College at Western University, Canada.
Wickberg's door : childhood and structures of thought -- Husbands, wives and the language of patriarchy -- Boys, girls and the practices of servitude -- Childhood without adulthood -- Generation, age and the logic of correspondence -- The master-servant sense of being in time.
Summary:
"Master-Servant Childhood" offers a new understanding of childhood in the Middle Ages as a form of master-servant relation embedded in an ancient sense of time as a correspondence between earthly change and eternal order. It challenges the misnomer that children were 'little adults' in the Middle Ages and corrects the prevalent misconceptions that childhood was unimportant, unrecognized or disregarded. The book argues for the value of studying childhood as a structure of thought and feeling and as an important avenue for exploring large scale historical changes in our sense of what it is to be and become human.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.