ABSTRACT
Philippe Ariès famously argued that Europeans prior to the seventeenth century possessed little understanding of the special needs and qualities of childhood but that around that time a shift in perception can be detected that eventually leads to the modern child-centered family. 1 While other historians have challenged and amended this theory, it retains a certain imaginative power that continues to invite exploration. To the extent there was such a turn, the Spanish royal family was at a unique intersection within that change. Just as the child Jesus was the first person to be presented as a child, royal children were the first class of children to be recognized as children, encouraged, when circumstances allowed, to develop at leisure and closely watched in their education. Contrary to the general theory that high infant mortality in the pre-modern world limited affection, for the royal family it focused attention on childhood activities and increased watchfulness over the health of children. The common desire among families to have children as well as the natural grief when a child died were magnified for the royal family, who saw in their children not just the survival of the family but the stability of the country and the defense of their faith.
