1st Edition
Nurture and Neglect: Childhood in Sixteenth-Century Northern England
Nurture and Neglect: Childhood in Sixteenth-Century Northern England addresses a number of anomalies in the existing historiography surrounding the experience of children in urban and rural communities in sixteenth-century northern England. In contrast to much recent scholarship that has focused on affective parent-child relationships, this study directly engages with the question of what sixteenth-century society actually constituted as nurture and neglect. Whilst many modern historians consider affection and love essential for nurture, contemporary ideas of good nurture were consistently framed in terms designed to instil obedience and deference to authority in the child, with the best environment in which to do this being the authoritative, patriarchal household.
Using ecclesiastical and secular legal records to form its basis, hitherto an untapped resource for children’s voices, this book tackles important omissions in the historiography, including the regional imbalance, which has largely ignored the north of England and generalised about the experiences of the whole of the country using only sources from the south, and the adult-centred nature of the debate in which historians have typically portrayed the child as having little or no say in their own care and upbringing. Nurture and Neglect will be of particular interest to scholars studying the history of childhood and the social history of England in the sixteenth-century.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
List of Tables
Abbreviations
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1 Interpreting the Sources
Legal Process
Ecclesiastical Courts
Secular Courts
Quarter Session Courts
Chancery Courts
Social Status of the Court Users
Reading the Sources for Children
Community Norms Reflected in the Sources
Chapter 2 Notions of Nurture and Neglect in Adult–Child Relationships
Forms of Communication
Birth to Seven Years
Responsibility of Adults in Regards to Children
Notions of Nurture and Neglect
Seven Years to Adolescence
Responsibility of Adults in Regards to Children
Notions of Nurture and Neglect for the Older Child
Neglect of the Older Child
Nurturing Discipline or Cruel Abuse
Intended Audience of Advice
Community ideals of Nurture and Neglect
Chapter 3 Child Marriage
Legal Definitions of Child Marriage
Consistency of Practice Across the Dioceses
Motivations for Child Marriage
Role of Family and Friends
Community Response to Child Marriage
Social Class of Children Married Underage
Lived Experiences of Children Married Underage
Emotional Responses and Reactions
Chapter 4 Education
Contexts of Learning
Types of Available Schooling
Professionalisation of Teaching
Participants in Formal Education
Children’s Lived Experiences at School
Chapter 5 Apprenticeship
System of Apprenticeship
Relationship Between Apprentice and Master
Conflicts and Concerns Between Master and Apprentice
Participants in Apprenticeship
Pauper Apprenticeship
Female Apprenticeship
Life After Apprenticeship
Chapter 6 Parental Deprivation
Types of Parental Deprivation
Costs of Raising a Parentally Deprived Child
Provisions Made by Parents
Disputed Authority
Parental Survival Expedients
Children’s Contributions to Nurture
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
Biography
Loretta Dolan is an Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Humanities at the University of Western Australia (UWA). She recently completed a PhD at UWA under the supervision of the late Professor Philippa Maddern and Dr Stephanie Tarbin, researching children and childrearing practices in the North of England, c. 1450-1603. She is the author of ‘Child Marriage in Sixteenth-Century Northern England: The Emotional Undertones in the Legal Narratives’ Limina: A Journal of Historical and Cultural Studies, 20.3, (2015) and the forthcoming ‘Poverty, Pilfering and Pleadings: The Microeconomics of Parental Deprivation in Northern England c. 1485-1603’.
