Shahar's challenge to Ariès's account of medieval childhood

Did people in medieval Europe see children as children, or as small adults? Ariès argues that childhood wasn't understood as a distinct stage with its own needs. His evidence includes illustrations in which children look like miniature adults, distinguished mainly by size.

That's suggestive, but I wouldn't automatically equate the way people draw children with everything they think or feel about them. Artistic depiction and parental attitudes aren't identical. Ariès adds another argument: high infant mortality may have encouraged parents to avoid close emotional attachments. That is his explanation for supposed indifference, not a conclusion we should assign to the writer.

Shahar's research challenges this picture. Now we're waiting to see both her evidence and how the author evaluates it.

Finding the evidence takes work because direct accounts of parents' personal feelings are unusual. That doesn't automatically mean Shahar is forcing the evidence to fit a predetermined conclusion; the next clause explains the source problem. She uses medical and theological writings, including saints' biographies and miracle accounts, to find indirect evidence.

The author calls this use of the material “intelligent” and describes the biographies as “particularly illuminating.” Those words signal approval. Accounts of saints' childhoods show parental concern, while stories about healing infants and blessing couples with children suggest that children were valued. We can still wonder how representative these accounts are, but the writer is treating them as evidence against indifference.

Paragraph 3 gives us an apparent difficulty. Boys aged seven to eleven were sent to monasteries or apprenticeships. My first reaction is that those are very young children to send away for training. Doesn't that sound like treating them as adults?

The passage anticipates that reaction. Shahar's response is that training occurred in stages; children weren't expected to assume every adult responsibility immediately (paragraph 3). Parents also sued masters who mistreated their children. Sending children away, on this account, wasn't proof of indifference. It could be a way to secure their future place in society.

We don't have to think this resembles the childhood we would want today. The narrower claim is that medieval people recognized a developmental stage and cared about their children. A different conception of childhood isn't the same as no conception of childhood.

The final paragraph tells us exactly where the author stands: Shahar is “highly persuasive,” but her rebuttal is “uncomfortably incomplete.” Both halves matter. Even if we personally find parts of her evidence unconvincing, we can't replace that stated assessment with our own.

What is missing? Ariès also argued that the powerful, private family organized around children emerged later, with the growing influence of the middle classes. Establishing medieval affection and a recognized childhood stage doesn't answer that broader account of institutional change. Parents could care about their children without family life having the later structure Ariès describes.

So Shahar has successfully challenged important parts of the older account, according to this writer. She hasn't addressed every part of it. The conclusion is qualified approval, not wholesale acceptance or dismissal.