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May 07, 2004

Thames Mudlarks

Latter day ragamuffins with metal detectors have unearthed 13th century toys including "tiny cannons and guns, metal figurines, and miniaturized household objects such as stools, jugs, cauldrons, and even frying pans complete with little fish." These contradict fashionable academic opinion about childhood in the middle ages.

"In the 1960s French historian Philippe Aries claimed that there wasn't really such a thing as childhood in the Middle Ages and that parents didn't form emotional attachments with their offspring, regarding them as economic providers or producers for the household," Forsyth said.

Aries pioneered ways of looking beyond kings, politics, and war to everyday medieval life. He argued that parents invested little emotional capital in their children because they had lots of offspring, many of them died in infancy, and that surviving children were sent to work at the ages of six or seven. "His views had a lot of currency. And for very many years, people believed this," Forsyth said, noting that it has only been recently, with discovery of ancient childhood items by contemporary treasure hunters, "that we've challenged this received wisdom."

"Surprise, surprise, human nature doesn't change," she said. "Some parents [from the Middle Ages] were very devoted to their children and gave them every luxury and pleasure they could afford."

Now, if someone can explain to me who Flo is and what she has to do with the British Museum. Nice belt buckle!

And then... "Finds Liason Officer"... I get it.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at May 7, 2004 09:40 AM

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