History Of Childhood - Medieval

So i had a look into childhood in the medieval times, and there was different views on how children were seen and how they should of been seen.

Bringing children into the world should of been a happy time we celebrate birth and the news of someone being pregnant and the child being bought into the world. In this time there was joy but also a extreme sense of danger, with the lack of anaesthetics and other infection fighting drugs there was alot more risk of what could happy to mother and baby.

Relgion had a big effect on children, the catholic church was against woman having official roles but this was changed for midwives to be able to baptize a baby in extreme circumstances, a baby was not aloud to die without being baptized.

Ages of children didnt matter to them described as 'imperfect adults' in A History of Childhood, Colin Heywood.
They were put into the world of adults at an early age to help work of parents or take on apprenticships.



http://books.google.com/books?id=TGyAy44bb10C&pg=PA17&dq=medieval+childhood&hl=en&ei=GU6YTrb9HJCPswaz5oTsAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CEEQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false