Training and Socialization
Parents were expected to train their offspring in manners, personal hygiene, and all the skills necessary to survive in a hostile world and get along with their neighbors at the same time. While most families undoubtedly managed this with little outside help, in the later Middle Ages there existed instruction manuals to assist in this training. These included such works as "The Young Children's Book," "How the Good Wife Taught Her Daughter" and "Symon's Lesson of Wisdom for All Manner of Children." 1
Some of these parenting manuals were particularly popular with wealthy townspeople who wanted their children to blend in polite society, and it is highly unlikely that most city-dwellers, let alone peasantry, followed such advice to the letter. Yet the manuals do offer an idea of the kind of behavior that was expected of a well-bred individual, and they give us a clue to how some children, at least, were likely to behave at the behest of their parents.
Instructions for the morning routine included prayer, washing face and hands, combing hair, cleaning teeth and, if necessary, clipping nails. One might imagine that in wealthy or noble households a servant might clean the child's shoes, sponge and brush his clothing and make his bed, but if there was no servant to do it he was supposed to do these things himself.
The matter of children's diets was also addressed. In a society where beer and wine were commonplace, children were to be limited to two or three glasses of wine or "small beers" (lightly alcoholic beer made from a second brewing). Food should be consumed in moderation, and children should wait to be fed. Young diners were instructed to wipe their knives on the trencher and not the tablecloth, wipe their cups with a napkin after drinking, and put meat scraps in a voider instead of back on the serving dish. Pets were not to be allowed near the table.
In public boys were to doff their caps to their elders and greet people with courtesy. When entering the house they were supposed to say "God be here" and, if a holy-water strop was nearby, they were to dip their fingers and cross themselves. The manuals had plenty of advice on what not to do, as well: no throwing sticks and stones at horses, dogs or people, no fighting, swearing, or getting clothing dirty, and no imitating adults behind their backs. The books even discussed the accidents that might befall a child at play, warning against leaning over wells or brooks and staying away from fire. 2
From the emphasis placed on behavior to avoid, we can assume that there were plenty of children who indulged in such childish mischief, prompting moralists to counsel against it in their manuals.
Education was primarily a matter for the home or monastery until the later Middle Ages, when schools began to appear in more populous areas such as London. Peasants had no incentive to teach their children to read and could rarely read much themselves. However, as guilds began to require that youths be able to read and write before they were accepted as apprentices,3 youngsters began to attend school more frequently.
In all phases of training, discipline would come into practice when children strayed from what they were taught.
Continued on Page Three: Discipline.
Notes
1. These works and others like them can be found in Rickert, Edith, ed., Babees' Book: Medieval Manners for the Young (New York, 1966).
2. Hanawalt, Barbara, Growing Up in Medieval London (Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 72-4.
3. Ibid, p. 82.
