A Child’s Life in the Middle Ages
Where are the children in Medieval art? So often they are missing and it’s sometimes assumed that because of the high infant mortality rates, parents deliberately didn’t bond with their children. Nothing could be further from the truth; children were cherished, cosseted and spoilt, but they worked hard, alongside adults too. We know that they loved toys as well as word games, bunking off school and teasing their teachers. This lecture goes from before the cradle with superstitions surrounding pregnancy and childbirth, to the trials and tribulations of teenage years and all too often to an early grave.