Details what childhood was like in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century London, discussing the importance of education and providing narratives of individual children.

Those personal accounts resurrect the essential experience of children's work, play, education, family relations, and coming of age from their own perspectives. Steering a middle path between the myth of wholesome farm life and the reality of work that was often extremely dangerous, Riney-Kehrberg shows both the best and the worst that a rural upbringing had to offer midwestern youth a time before mechanization forever changed the rural scene and radio broke the spell of isolation. Down on the farm, truancy was not uncommon and chores were shared across genders. Yet farm children managed to indulge in inventive play---much of it homemade---to supplement store-bought toys and to get through the long spells between circuses.

In 1962, the scholar Philippe Aries suggested that, needing a psychological barrier against high infant mortality rates, medieval parents largely regarded their children with indifference. This idea is now seen as false, as medieval parents had affection for their children, who enjoyed the right to play, and were protected against abuse and neglect by society and the law. Here, ten historians present challenging essays in response to recent debates on medieval childhood.

This new edition of the only text that thoroughly covers children and childhood from a sociological perspective includes updated coverage of peer relations, friendship, and the social problems experienced by children. The Third Edition - has been thoroughly updated to reflect the recent explosion of research in the field - includes expanded and updated material on children′s symbolic culture and material culture, and a new section, ′Children, Parents, and Consumer Culture′ - includes new section on ′Generation M: Electronic Media in the Lives of Preadolescents and Adolescents′ - highlights current policy debates and changing demographics regarding children′s quality of life around the world.

An examination of the growth of civic power in the turbulent arena of late medieval London. In the late fourteenth century, London's government, through mismanagement and negligence, experienced a series of crises. Relationships with the crown were tested; competing factions sought to wrest power from the hands of the once all-powerful victualling guilds; revolt in the streets in 1381 targeted the institutions of royal as well as civic power; and, between 1392 and 1397, King Richard removed the liberties of the city and appointed his own wardensto govern in place of the mayor of London. This book examines the strategies employed by the generation of London aldermen who governed after 1397 to regain control of their city. By examining a range of interdisciplinary sources, including manuscript and printed books, administrative records, accounts of civic ritual and epitaphs, the author shows how, by carefully constructing the idea of a civic community united by shared political concerns and spiritual ambitions, a small number of men virtually monopolised power in the capital. More generally, this is an exploration of the mentalities of those who sought civic power in the late Middle Ages and provokes the question: whygovern, and for whom? DAVID HARRY is Lecturer in History at the University of Chester.

Fifteen essays from the 2007 BABAO conference, divided into three broad themes: non-adult anthropology; biological anthrpology and ethics and repatriation.

This volume, covering entries F-R, examines the social and cultural history of childhood through articles on education, parenting, child labor, economics, children's literature, play, toys and games, health, physiology, law, the criminal justice system, and social welfare.

The question and procedures of integrating children into wider society during the medieval and early modern period are debated across a wide range of contemporary texts. This study examines ways in which vernacular literature provided a guide to socialising children.

Vols. 8-10 of the 1965-1984 master cumulation constitute a title index.

An exceptional book in which Hugh Cunningham surveys the changing concepts of childhood and the changing experience of being a child, in Europe and North America across five centuries.